5 ms·

I agree overall, but to push back: 20 years ago, we HAD to be more curious. If you wanted a way to store your code and there wasn't anything that worked for you

I agree overall, but to push back: 20 years ago, we HAD to be more curious. If you wanted a way to store your code and there wasn't anything that worked for you out there, you had to go and invent Git over a long weekend. Now, there's so many great tools (thanks to thousands or millions of curious devs) that 0-to-1 improvements aren't nearly as possible to discover. There's still people taking on new frontiers... even if you don't love crypto (and I don't!), a lot of very curious developers found a home there. AI is tougher (due to the upstart costs of building a model), but still discovery is happening there. I don't think curious developers are gone... there's just an increase of un-curious developers looking for a paycheck. You just have to look harder now (although I think it only seems like we had a cohort of curious devs because we're looking at it in hindsight, where the outcomes are obvious).

pydry 1y ago
There's also more devs who are only curious about fashionable topics (e.g. AI).
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
JustExAWS 1y ago
This is very much a romanticism. 20 years ago there was definitely source control, modern tooling, etc. TFS was introduced in 2005 for Microsoft shops for instance.
- gkoberger 1y ago
  I was a bit glib, I agree everything built on top of each other. But there were bigger gaps back then than there are now.
  - dcminter 1y ago
    The biggest gap was information - though I think you have to go back a bit further really. Until the late 90s if you wanted to know about a topic you generally depended upon printed material or direct transfer of knowledge. I'm rather envious of kids today who have access to Google, Wikipedia, YouTube, and (with caveats) ChatGPT when they're truly interested in a topic. They can dive a lot deeper than I had the opportunity to without bringing in adult assistance.
    - scarface_74 1y ago
      I was on Usenet in the various comp.* groups in the mid 90s. Dejanews could be used to search news groups then.
      - dcminter 1y ago
        Sure, but the volume of information was tiny compared to what was available in printed form - whereas it's the reverse now.
        scarface_74 1y ago
        If I wanted to know everything about my first computer - an Apple //e - i needed two books. I needed Apple’s official Applesoft Basic manual and another book I checked out from the library about programming in 65C02 assembly on the Apple //e.
    - godelski 1y ago
      Sure, but look at the average person. The average person has all the world's knowledge at their fingertips. The access is there. But do people use it? Or do they use it in that way? How many people just scan a wiki article looking to mic drop on someone else instead of trying to understand what they meant or what the material is actually about? Has something similar to that occurred in this thread? "Can" is a critical word in your comment.
      - dcminter 1y ago
  - JustExAWS 1y ago
    What were those “gaps”? There were decent compilers and IDEs at least in the mid 90s. MySQL was available for free in 2000 and anyone could download any number of language runtimes for free like Perl and Java. If your corporate overlords weren’t cheap (or you were in college) an MSDN subscription was amazing.
    - gkoberger 1y ago
      Sure, things existed. mySQL is a great database, but so is Mongo and so is Clickhouse and so is Firebase, etc. Those alternatives all filled a gap MySQL couldn't, and now the bar for creating a new type of database is significantly higher because there's fewer gaps (schema-less, good for logs, good for fulltext search, realtime, etc). JavaScript has been around for decades. But jQuery made it so much easier, and then React built on top of that even more. And jQuery wasn't the first DOM library, nor was React the first framework – but both were where it seemingly clicked between ideas, usability and whatever else made them successful. (I will agree that Microsoft had a run of things where anyone who bought in to their ecosystem had a lot of things that worked well together.)
      - raw_anon_1111 1y ago
        Exactly, the web as an app platform didn’t really take off until 2008. If you were a pure Microsoft shop from top to bottom, all you needed was an MSDN subscription provided by your employer.
    - pixl97 1y ago
      Those IDEs sucked compared to what you can download in 5 minutes for free today. The number of libraries available (and where you could find them) was miniscule, and most had very bad documentation for beginners.
      - scarface_74 1y ago
        Did you ever use the Turbo series IDEs or whatever that IBM Java based IDE was? Visual Studio was quite good in 1999.
xyst 1y ago
What’s the point of having a 0-1 mindset in a corporate environment? A majority of the time it’s wasted. It gets shelved and never used again. Maybe some upstart in the company picks up the effort again 5-6 years. We (ie, people that do not have a safety net) do not have this luxury you people did in the 1990s of experimentation and curiosity. Boomers and leaders using shitty Reaganomic economic policies have decimated our safety nets by so much that it makes experimentation a luxury for the rich and powerful. Cost of living is higher than ever. Inflation is higher than ever. We are handcuffed to this shitty system in America called “private health insurance.” Get sick? No job? You are fucked m8. The risks of "curiousity" are much much higher than it was during your time buddy

pydry 1y ago

There's also more devs who are only curious about fashionable topics (e.g. AI).

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]

JustExAWS 1y ago

This is very much a romanticism. 20 years ago there was definitely source control, modern tooling, etc. TFS was introduced in 2005 for Microsoft shops for instance.

gkoberger 1y ago
I was a bit glib, I agree everything built on top of each other. But there were bigger gaps back then than there are now.
- dcminter 1y ago
  The biggest gap was information - though I think you have to go back a bit further really. Until the late 90s if you wanted to know about a topic you generally depended upon printed material or direct transfer of knowledge. I'm rather envious of kids today who have access to Google, Wikipedia, YouTube, and (with caveats) ChatGPT when they're truly interested in a topic. They can dive a lot deeper than I had the opportunity to without bringing in adult assistance.
  - scarface_74 1y ago
    I was on Usenet in the various comp.* groups in the mid 90s. Dejanews could be used to search news groups then.
    - dcminter 1y ago
      Sure, but the volume of information was tiny compared to what was available in printed form - whereas it's the reverse now.
      - scarface_74 1y ago
        If I wanted to know everything about my first computer - an Apple //e - i needed two books. I needed Apple’s official Applesoft Basic manual and another book I checked out from the library about programming in 65C02 assembly on the Apple //e.
  - godelski 1y ago
    Sure, but look at the average person. The average person has all the world's knowledge at their fingertips. The access is there. But do people use it? Or do they use it in that way? How many people just scan a wiki article looking to mic drop on someone else instead of trying to understand what they meant or what the material is actually about? Has something similar to that occurred in this thread? "Can" is a critical word in your comment.
    - dcminter 1y ago
- JustExAWS 1y ago
  What were those “gaps”? There were decent compilers and IDEs at least in the mid 90s. MySQL was available for free in 2000 and anyone could download any number of language runtimes for free like Perl and Java. If your corporate overlords weren’t cheap (or you were in college) an MSDN subscription was amazing.
  - gkoberger 1y ago
    Sure, things existed. mySQL is a great database, but so is Mongo and so is Clickhouse and so is Firebase, etc. Those alternatives all filled a gap MySQL couldn't, and now the bar for creating a new type of database is significantly higher because there's fewer gaps (schema-less, good for logs, good for fulltext search, realtime, etc). JavaScript has been around for decades. But jQuery made it so much easier, and then React built on top of that even more. And jQuery wasn't the first DOM library, nor was React the first framework – but both were where it seemingly clicked between ideas, usability and whatever else made them successful. (I will agree that Microsoft had a run of things where anyone who bought in to their ecosystem had a lot of things that worked well together.)
    - raw_anon_1111 1y ago
      Exactly, the web as an app platform didn’t really take off until 2008. If you were a pure Microsoft shop from top to bottom, all you needed was an MSDN subscription provided by your employer.
  - pixl97 1y ago
    Those IDEs sucked compared to what you can download in 5 minutes for free today. The number of libraries available (and where you could find them) was miniscule, and most had very bad documentation for beginners.
    - scarface_74 1y ago
      Did you ever use the Turbo series IDEs or whatever that IBM Java based IDE was? Visual Studio was quite good in 1999.

xyst 1y ago

What’s the point of having a 0-1 mindset in a corporate environment? A majority of the time it’s wasted. It gets shelved and never used again. Maybe some upstart in the company picks up the effort again 5-6 years. We (ie, people that do not have a safety net) do not have this luxury you people did in the 1990s of experimentation and curiosity. Boomers and leaders using shitty Reaganomic economic policies have decimated our safety nets by so much that it makes experimentation a luxury for the rich and powerful. Cost of living is higher than ever. Inflation is higher than ever. We are handcuffed to this shitty system in America called “private health insurance.” Get sick? No job? You are fucked m8. The risks of "curiousity" are much much higher than it was during your time buddy