3 ms·

> Have we reached that level of the civilisation that goes extinct, for forgetting how its own inner machines work? Probably. Almost nobody under the age of 4

by Syonyk 4y ago

> Have we reached that level of the civilisation that goes extinct, for forgetting how its own inner machines work? Probably. Almost nobody under the age of 40 works in the "deep weeds" anymore (firmware, kernel, casually "Ring 0 and below" spaces). A decade ago, it was about 30. I'm the last wave, it seems, of people in these spaces, and that's quite terrifying. But I get it. The hardware is maddeningly complex, rapidly getting more complex to solve the problems created by the last complexity, and the whole stack is cracking and crumbling around the edges (the uarch vulns and Intel pulling SGX from consumer chips are a reflection of this). Another decade, this entire low level group will have retired to something far away from computers, and... we'll see what happens. Nothing good, I fear.

b112 4y ago
I often wonder the same. I grew up at a time, where I had to learn assembly on the C64, to get my machine to handle > 300 baud with uploads/downloads, on a BBS I wrote. On the hardware side, it was very easy to learn how to fix said machines, with schematics provided in the back of the user manual. This level of understanding is not as easily possible today, and my understanding grew outward from that. I think two things, the need to understand low level to work with hardware competently in the past, and that it was fun to work with hardware in the past, have led to a theoretical golden age of people who understood it all. I have deep understanding of baremetal, right through to frontend. Part of that comes from working with computing as it changed and morphed. People today are graduating, entering the field, but are starting at a higher level. One other thing to bear in mind. When I entered this field, it wasn't to make money. Salaries were abysmal, and on top of that, the field was seen as "boring" and "stodgy" to a great many. And there were often even poor employment prospects! This meant that people who worked in computing prior to 2000 or so, did so because of joy. They didn't think "Oh, I can make a good living here, I choose this job". In fact, people would tell you not to work in computing, who on Earth would hire you! So people from this era often were in this field, because they were drawn to it not for income, or job security, but instead because it was more important to work with the fun and joy of computing. While there is absolutely nothing wrong with entering a field to make a living, or for job security, the motivations are different. An example here ; using a computer is different than building computing. Enjoying using a web browser, enjoying interacting online, that is not "enjoying computing". Yet most people I speak of, were building circuit boards, coding in basic, when kids. How many CS graduates were coding apps, building webpages, for 100% fun, without any encouragement when 5? So I think the same capability is there, it is just that most people today are not interested in computing. They just happen to make a living there, and so those enjoying computing as a primary are awash in a sea of those who couldn't really care less.
- makapuf 4y ago
  As someone said, kids this day build computers with arduinos and stm32.
- mfuzzey 4y ago
  Actually this was the much of the reason for the creation of the Raspberry Pi. Its creator, Eben Upton was a director of studies at Cambridge university and realised that there were fewer CS applicants than in the past and that many of those that did apply knew far much less about computers and programming through there own "tinkering" than previously. He saw that this was due to modern computers being far more opaque than the systems he had used as a kid (like the BBC Micro). So he decided to build something to address that issue that was open enough to understand the workings and cheap enough that people wouldn't be discouraged from tinkering due to the risk of breaking it. It seems to have worked quite well...
erwan577 4y ago
In my experience, your point is mostly true in academia and business settings. The "foundation" layer of CS only brings a negligible number of jobs. But with the global availability and affordability of computing devices plus the global knowledge base of the web curious geeks never had so much opportunities to learn and practice. Here is just a link which i hope will bring some joy to your day : https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2842294429 https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=28422... Other sources of hope are retro computing communities, emulation devs, FPGA scene (Mister) for hardware side, assembly devs / optimization communities for software side. Hardware changes slowly make current system design choices obsolete. Persistent RAM, TBs of RAM will require low level OS redesign sooner than expected.
Gordonjcp 4y ago
> Almost nobody under the age of 40 works in the "deep weeds" anymore (firmware, kernel, casually "Ring 0 and below" spaces). On PCs, maybe, but "kids these days" use microcontrollers like I used meccano parts.
nibbleshifter 4y ago
> Almost nobody under the age of 40 works in the "deep weeds" anymore (firmware, kernel, casually "Ring 0 and below" spaces) A lot of the best people I know in that field (low level stuff) are younger than me.
surajrmal 4y ago
Do we work in the same field? I'm 32 and am the oldest person on my team of 10. We work on drivers and other low level software. Adjacent teams have similar mixes. At previous roles I saw similarly young demographics in my coworkers. I might agree with the premise that the overall number of engineers down in the weeds has increased at a snails pace compared to the rest of the industry which may give the impression folks are older by comparison.

by Syonyk 4y ago

b112 4y ago

I often wonder the same. I grew up at a time, where I had to learn assembly on the C64, to get my machine to handle > 300 baud with uploads/downloads, on a BBS I wrote. On the hardware side, it was very easy to learn how to fix said machines, with schematics provided in the back of the user manual. This level of understanding is not as easily possible today, and my understanding grew outward from that. I think two things, the need to understand low level to work with hardware competently in the past, and that it was fun to work with hardware in the past, have led to a theoretical golden age of people who understood it all. I have deep understanding of baremetal, right through to frontend. Part of that comes from working with computing as it changed and morphed. People today are graduating, entering the field, but are starting at a higher level. One other thing to bear in mind. When I entered this field, it wasn't to make money. Salaries were abysmal, and on top of that, the field was seen as "boring" and "stodgy" to a great many. And there were often even poor employment prospects! This meant that people who worked in computing prior to 2000 or so, did so because of joy. They didn't think "Oh, I can make a good living here, I choose this job". In fact, people would tell you not to work in computing, who on Earth would hire you! So people from this era often were in this field, because they were drawn to it not for income, or job security, but instead because it was more important to work with the fun and joy of computing. While there is absolutely nothing wrong with entering a field to make a living, or for job security, the motivations are different. An example here ; using a computer is different than building computing. Enjoying using a web browser, enjoying interacting online, that is not "enjoying computing". Yet most people I speak of, were building circuit boards, coding in basic, when kids. How many CS graduates were coding apps, building webpages, for 100% fun, without any encouragement when 5? So I think the same capability is there, it is just that most people today are not interested in computing. They just happen to make a living there, and so those enjoying computing as a primary are awash in a sea of those who couldn't really care less.

makapuf 4y ago
As someone said, kids this day build computers with arduinos and stm32.
mfuzzey 4y ago
Actually this was the much of the reason for the creation of the Raspberry Pi. Its creator, Eben Upton was a director of studies at Cambridge university and realised that there were fewer CS applicants than in the past and that many of those that did apply knew far much less about computers and programming through there own "tinkering" than previously. He saw that this was due to modern computers being far more opaque than the systems he had used as a kid (like the BBC Micro). So he decided to build something to address that issue that was open enough to understand the workings and cheap enough that people wouldn't be discouraged from tinkering due to the risk of breaking it. It seems to have worked quite well...

erwan577 4y ago

In my experience, your point is mostly true in academia and business settings. The "foundation" layer of CS only brings a negligible number of jobs. But with the global availability and affordability of computing devices plus the global knowledge base of the web curious geeks never had so much opportunities to learn and practice. Here is just a link which i hope will bring some joy to your day : https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2842294429 https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=28422... Other sources of hope are retro computing communities, emulation devs, FPGA scene (Mister) for hardware side, assembly devs / optimization communities for software side. Hardware changes slowly make current system design choices obsolete. Persistent RAM, TBs of RAM will require low level OS redesign sooner than expected.

Gordonjcp 4y ago

> Almost nobody under the age of 40 works in the "deep weeds" anymore (firmware, kernel, casually "Ring 0 and below" spaces). On PCs, maybe, but "kids these days" use microcontrollers like I used meccano parts.

nibbleshifter 4y ago

> Almost nobody under the age of 40 works in the "deep weeds" anymore (firmware, kernel, casually "Ring 0 and below" spaces) A lot of the best people I know in that field (low level stuff) are younger than me.

surajrmal 4y ago

Do we work in the same field? I'm 32 and am the oldest person on my team of 10. We work on drivers and other low level software. Adjacent teams have similar mixes. At previous roles I saw similarly young demographics in my coworkers. I might agree with the premise that the overall number of engineers down in the weeds has increased at a snails pace compared to the rest of the industry which may give the impression folks are older by comparison.