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I think it ends with everyone becoming a developer Not in a million years. When I was 10 I got my first computer and spent 12-16 hours per day on it every day

by 300bps 5y ago

I think it ends with everyone becoming a developer Not in a million years. When I was 10 I got my first computer and spent 12-16 hours per day on it every day learning BASIC, 6502 Assembly and many other languages. All the adults at the time thought, “this is how all kids will be from now on!” Except none of my peers did it. The generation after me only had a small percentage of people truly interested in computers and it hasn’t grown much since then. I’ve interviewed a couple hundred computer science graduates from top schools for jobs and the vast majority of them didn’t touch their first programming language until college. And these are computer science graduates! A large percentage of the total population is outright technology hostile and proud of it.

czbond 5y ago
>A large percentage of the total population is outright technology hostile and proud of it. Can you expand on this? I was one of the CompSci because I loved it people - and find it hard to fathom this - and could use some insight.
- JohnBooty 5y ago
  I'm not the parent poster, but I see this as well. I think the majority of folks are comfortable with Netflix and smartphones and social media, but these are dead-simple and mostly passive experiences explicitly designed for the lowest common denominator in terms of technical proficiency. Beyond that, a lot of people kind of hate technology. And why shouldn't they? It's fucking horrible. Stuff breaks easy and gets obsoleted. Social media is a hellscape and actively makes them feel bad, a steep price to pay for seeing pics from their nieces and grandsons. Everybody hates the shitty touch controls in their cars that require you to click through a bunch of screens instead of just twisting a physical knob. Tons of consumer tech is literally spying on you. Most of it is user-hostile in some way or another, and at a minimum everything is trying to get you to sign up to some subscription service and will also stop working as soon as the manufacturer loses interest in keeping those servers running so you never feel like you actually own everything. You can't even enjoy Christmas morning any more; it's five hours of software updates. Oh, and Slack and other communication tools are the thing their manager uses to harass them every five minutes. I bet a significant portion of the American population experiences a literal spike in blood pressure and cortisol levels when they hear that Slack notification SFX. There's a lot of cool tech out there, but consumer technology is a fucking nightmare.
tupac_speedrap 5y ago
How is not touching a programming language until college a bad thing? Some people just want to make a living out of software engineering and then go home and they aren't sweating over Web 4.0 or whatever we are on now.
- CydeWeys 5y ago
  18 is awfully old to start learning something for the first time. Imagine saying the same thing about math, reading, or history. It's harder to pick things up when you're older, and it leaves fewer people capable of it. See also: learning human languages.
  - krainboltgreene 5y ago
    - imwillofficial 5y ago
  - Kaze404 5y ago
    This is the saddest thing I've read on this website. I hope for your own sake you allow yourself to learn new things in the future.
    - strken 5y ago
      It's not about what you're allowed to do, it's about what professionals in a field need to do to get to the top. I've been programming since I was 8. I've been drawing since I was 29. I will probably never reach the same percentile of drawing ability that I have with programming ability. That's okay for me because I enjoy it anyway, but from the perspective of training people to do their best work, starting younger can lead to higher ability.
      - joe5150 5y ago
nogridbag 5y ago
> Except none of my peers did it That's a good point. I still remember how excited I was writing my first app in BASIC at school: What is your name? > John Hello John! I was so excited I tried to copy the program on a floppy disk to play with at home but I could not figure out why it didn't work. I now realize the school used Apple II's and my parents had a PC at home. I've always thought because today's generation grew up with smart phones, tablets, and ultra realistic games no one would be interested in getting started with coding. But reading your comment I realize the whole school was exposed to the same class and very few of my classmates would go on to major in CS.
rayiner 5y ago
> I’ve interviewed a couple hundred computer science graduates from top schools for jobs and the vast majority of them didn’t touch their first programming language until college In the US?!
smrtinsert 5y ago
This is something I've realized as well. There's only a few of us that are excited to do this work and that's what you need to do it longterm.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

by 300bps 5y ago

czbond 5y ago

>A large percentage of the total population is outright technology hostile and proud of it. Can you expand on this? I was one of the CompSci because I loved it people - and find it hard to fathom this - and could use some insight.

JohnBooty 5y ago
I'm not the parent poster, but I see this as well. I think the majority of folks are comfortable with Netflix and smartphones and social media, but these are dead-simple and mostly passive experiences explicitly designed for the lowest common denominator in terms of technical proficiency. Beyond that, a lot of people kind of hate technology. And why shouldn't they? It's fucking horrible. Stuff breaks easy and gets obsoleted. Social media is a hellscape and actively makes them feel bad, a steep price to pay for seeing pics from their nieces and grandsons. Everybody hates the shitty touch controls in their cars that require you to click through a bunch of screens instead of just twisting a physical knob. Tons of consumer tech is literally spying on you. Most of it is user-hostile in some way or another, and at a minimum everything is trying to get you to sign up to some subscription service and will also stop working as soon as the manufacturer loses interest in keeping those servers running so you never feel like you actually own everything. You can't even enjoy Christmas morning any more; it's five hours of software updates. Oh, and Slack and other communication tools are the thing their manager uses to harass them every five minutes. I bet a significant portion of the American population experiences a literal spike in blood pressure and cortisol levels when they hear that Slack notification SFX. There's a lot of cool tech out there, but consumer technology is a fucking nightmare.

tupac_speedrap 5y ago

How is not touching a programming language until college a bad thing? Some people just want to make a living out of software engineering and then go home and they aren't sweating over Web 4.0 or whatever we are on now.

CydeWeys 5y ago
18 is awfully old to start learning something for the first time. Imagine saying the same thing about math, reading, or history. It's harder to pick things up when you're older, and it leaves fewer people capable of it. See also: learning human languages.
- krainboltgreene 5y ago
  - imwillofficial 5y ago
- Kaze404 5y ago
  This is the saddest thing I've read on this website. I hope for your own sake you allow yourself to learn new things in the future.
  - strken 5y ago
    It's not about what you're allowed to do, it's about what professionals in a field need to do to get to the top. I've been programming since I was 8. I've been drawing since I was 29. I will probably never reach the same percentile of drawing ability that I have with programming ability. That's okay for me because I enjoy it anyway, but from the perspective of training people to do their best work, starting younger can lead to higher ability.
    - joe5150 5y ago

nogridbag 5y ago

> Except none of my peers did it That's a good point. I still remember how excited I was writing my first app in BASIC at school: What is your name? > John Hello John! I was so excited I tried to copy the program on a floppy disk to play with at home but I could not figure out why it didn't work. I now realize the school used Apple II's and my parents had a PC at home. I've always thought because today's generation grew up with smart phones, tablets, and ultra realistic games no one would be interested in getting started with coding. But reading your comment I realize the whole school was exposed to the same class and very few of my classmates would go on to major in CS.

rayiner 5y ago

> I’ve interviewed a couple hundred computer science graduates from top schools for jobs and the vast majority of them didn’t touch their first programming language until college In the US?!

smrtinsert 5y ago

This is something I've realized as well. There's only a few of us that are excited to do this work and that's what you need to do it longterm.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]