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Why are these sentiments always downvoted? Do people honestly think that this generation of software folks are significantly better than the last 3-4? Given p

Why are these sentiments always downvoted? Do people honestly think that this generation of software folks are significantly better than the last 3-4? Given programmers ego, I assume “damn straight”. But then, that’s what the previous bunch said also. Good, safe, stable coding is HARD which it’s not often done cuz hard = expensive. And weregild costs lots and lots of money.

iso1631 5y ago
> Do people honestly think that this generation of software folks are significantly better than the last 3-4? I don't think they're worse, just that the damage they can cause is far wider, both because of the ease of spread and the increase in reliance on technology
bluGill 5y ago
> Do people honestly think that this generation of software folks are significantly better than the last 3-4? Yes, because as Issac Newton said, we are standing on the shoulders of giants. In 1950 the first programmers didn't know a lot of the tricks to write good code that I do. (they also didn't have computers that could handle the multi-million line programs that I work on) Over years a lot of things have had to be discovered, and a lot of seemingly-good bad ideas had to be rejected the hard way. Of course today there are a lot more "programmers" writing simple web apps that depend on complex back ends, but demand even less skill than the programmers of old (who had to worry about where on the drum their next instruction was - concepts that are lost on us today). Still, we have a lot more programmers who are better than the best of the old, than the sum total of all the old programmers. Though I do have to be careful. I'm soon entering the category of a previous generation. I expect anyone still programming today - regardless of age - is of this generation. There is a lot of overlap of people who started out in older generations not knowing as much as todays, but have learned and now are todays generation.

iso1631 5y ago

> Do people honestly think that this generation of software folks are significantly better than the last 3-4? I don't think they're worse, just that the damage they can cause is far wider, both because of the ease of spread and the increase in reliance on technology

bluGill 5y ago

> Do people honestly think that this generation of software folks are significantly better than the last 3-4? Yes, because as Issac Newton said, we are standing on the shoulders of giants. In 1950 the first programmers didn't know a lot of the tricks to write good code that I do. (they also didn't have computers that could handle the multi-million line programs that I work on) Over years a lot of things have had to be discovered, and a lot of seemingly-good bad ideas had to be rejected the hard way. Of course today there are a lot more "programmers" writing simple web apps that depend on complex back ends, but demand even less skill than the programmers of old (who had to worry about where on the drum their next instruction was - concepts that are lost on us today). Still, we have a lot more programmers who are better than the best of the old, than the sum total of all the old programmers. Though I do have to be careful. I'm soon entering the category of a previous generation. I expect anyone still programming today - regardless of age - is of this generation. There is a lot of overlap of people who started out in older generations not knowing as much as todays, but have learned and now are todays generation.