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For most disciplines, there are places on the web where esoteric information can be found. Wikipedia is very strong on math and computer science topics, and I r

by theoh 8y ago

For most disciplines, there are places on the web where esoteric information can be found. Wikipedia is very strong on math and computer science topics, and I recognize the feeling that you are describing of realising how much there is to learn. The hyperlinked nature of Wikipedia amplifies this. The phenomenon of professionalization has probably made computing less of an intellectual activity, and more of a routine business. Is that what your perception is? It doesn't help that the signal-to-noise ratio is now much lower.

gumby 8y ago
> The phenomenon of professionalization has probably made computing less of an intellectual activity, and more of a routine business. Is that what your perception is? Not just computing. Compared to my childhood in the 60s/70s (I'm gen X, though my early childhood was not in the US), life is highly professionalized. Sport used to be played by everyone, now even school kids specialize and have fancy training. Music is less ad hoc though admittedly that had become a factory product by the 60s. And it was easier to tinker. Nowadays people talk of "building" a PC when they are just gluing together lego blocks. That is great in that it opens up the opportunity for many more people to program, but at a cost of hardware tinkering. It used to be obvious by looking at a car motor what was going on. Now they are boring. When video games were starting they were a gateway to programming for lots of kids. Now they are part of an ecosystem of toys that play with the kids (rather than the kids playing with them) and are generally part of an integrated marketing ecosystem ("franchise") that has characters and storylines that integrate film, video, toys...where is open ended imagination? Fandom is more consumption of someone else's thinking now than it used to be. I know, sounds like a curmudgeon's lament. > It doesn't help that the signal-to-noise ratio is now much lower. I am not sure that's true. There's a survivorship bias in that we still read the work of the greats, while most of the crud is lost. I recently tossed out several shelves worth of old CS papers from the 60s-80s that I knew I'd never look at again. Dead end CPU designs, absurd (in retrospect) claims, all sorts of crud. There is lots of fabulous thinking from the ancient Greeks, but what's survived is an infinitesimal portion of what was produced...I assume none or hardly any of what perished was worth re-reading.

by theoh 8y ago

gumby 8y ago

> The phenomenon of professionalization has probably made computing less of an intellectual activity, and more of a routine business. Is that what your perception is? Not just computing. Compared to my childhood in the 60s/70s (I'm gen X, though my early childhood was not in the US), life is highly professionalized. Sport used to be played by everyone, now even school kids specialize and have fancy training. Music is less ad hoc though admittedly that had become a factory product by the 60s. And it was easier to tinker. Nowadays people talk of "building" a PC when they are just gluing together lego blocks. That is great in that it opens up the opportunity for many more people to program, but at a cost of hardware tinkering. It used to be obvious by looking at a car motor what was going on. Now they are boring. When video games were starting they were a gateway to programming for lots of kids. Now they are part of an ecosystem of toys that play with the kids (rather than the kids playing with them) and are generally part of an integrated marketing ecosystem ("franchise") that has characters and storylines that integrate film, video, toys...where is open ended imagination? Fandom is more consumption of someone else's thinking now than it used to be. I know, sounds like a curmudgeon's lament. > It doesn't help that the signal-to-noise ratio is now much lower. I am not sure that's true. There's a survivorship bias in that we still read the work of the greats, while most of the crud is lost. I recently tossed out several shelves worth of old CS papers from the 60s-80s that I knew I'd never look at again. Dead end CPU designs, absurd (in retrospect) claims, all sorts of crud. There is lots of fabulous thinking from the ancient Greeks, but what's survived is an infinitesimal portion of what was produced...I assume none or hardly any of what perished was worth re-reading.