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> did we mess up somewhere and fail to convey this aspect of the hacker spirit to the youth? or are things just changing too rapidly? I think that young people

> did we mess up somewhere and fail to convey this aspect of the hacker spirit to the youth? or are things just changing too rapidly? I think that young people today don't perceive themselves as having any free time, and so they treat new things as they're taught in school: optimize the solution, get your grade/get paid, and go back to the precious little free time you have available to enjoy your life. The disappearing free time is partially true, as the reach of the school environment grows and homework/extracurricular burdens increase. It's also partially imagined, because most young people burn 4-9 hours per day on their phones. It's not their fault, since phones are designed to be addicting for young people specifically. However, the end result is that the class of people who should be the most restless, virile, excited, and driven in society--kids age 12-20--is the most over-scheduled and exhausted. If you took a modern young person and stuck them on a reservation where the level of technology and pace of life matched the '80s and '90s, they'd start behaving like young people again.

dajt 3y ago
In addition to how many distractions there are now - youtube & stream services, and much better games than in the 80s, the barrier to entry is so much higher. I had a C64 and only the docs that came with it, until I eventually found a couple of books on assembly, one not even for the C64. But even with that scarcity of info I was just desperate to know how it worked and how to make it do things. But look at how complex a computer is today! Even though there is endless info for free, it's just too difficult to get something fun going. Early PCs were still understandable, but todays GPUs etc are just a different world, and expectations are sky high when you see the current gen games. Even an 'indy pixel game' is no laughing matter to create.
- quacked 3y ago
  Yeah, that's a good point. My introduction to coding class around 2010 covered enough material in a few lectures to take up an entire summer in 1990.

dajt 3y ago

In addition to how many distractions there are now - youtube & stream services, and much better games than in the 80s, the barrier to entry is so much higher. I had a C64 and only the docs that came with it, until I eventually found a couple of books on assembly, one not even for the C64. But even with that scarcity of info I was just desperate to know how it worked and how to make it do things. But look at how complex a computer is today! Even though there is endless info for free, it's just too difficult to get something fun going. Early PCs were still understandable, but todays GPUs etc are just a different world, and expectations are sky high when you see the current gen games. Even an 'indy pixel game' is no laughing matter to create.

quacked 3y ago
Yeah, that's a good point. My introduction to coding class around 2010 covered enough material in a few lectures to take up an entire summer in 1990.