281–290 of 422 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why is a pothole round? Nope - sorry, looks like you're not a mythical unicorn!
The famous question is "why are manhole covers round?" Manholes being artificial, this leaves some room for speculation about why the shape was chosen. "Why is a pothole round?" is a more objective question.
> Computer retailers stopped installing development environments by default. As a result, anyone learning to program has to start by installing an SDE -- and that's a bigger barrier than you might expect. Many users have never installed anything, don't know how to, or might not be allowed to. Installing software is easier now than it used to be, but it is still error prone and can be frustrating. If someone just want…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree completely --- being one of the "older programmers" --- and think it could be phrased thus: a new generation of "coders" is being forced to learn how to write instructions for the machine, when they are barely computer-literate. Having taught some introductory CS courses a few years ago, the amount of struggling with basic things like file naming, directory hierarchies, and even simple hardware use was a cons…
There aren't really any clues as to how a computer works on an iphone. There isn't even a visible filesystem. It's no wonder students today have no idea how a computer works.
In the bad old days computers weren't wide spread but just by virtue of having one you would learn programming / tech skills. Today computers are everywhere but owning one doesn't teach you anything as fundamental functionality is hidden/locked away from the user in the name of being "consumer friendly".
I wonder if those born between 1988 and 2002 will be the last of the so-called naturally computer literate.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Aye, I second this, got me really pissed off when fellow CS student told me he has ''experience'' in using Iphone extensively, and that counts towards computing. Makes you wonder what does computing mean to people nowadays.
I ask this out of genuine interest... why does it matter? Why’d it piss you off?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
One other factor I've wondered about over the years is how quickly they give up when they hit a problem. In the 90s and early 2000s people had to develop local diagnostic skills, read documentation, etc. more before things like Stack Overflow were so pervasive. I wouldn't say it's a scientific observation but I've definitely gotten the impression that it's taking people longer to outgrow the cycle of immediately sear…
> I wouldn't say it's a scientific observation but I've definitely gotten the impression that it's taking people longer to outgrow the cycle of immediately searching for a copy-paste answer and moving on without developing a better understanding of the issue for the next time something similar shows up. I wonder if that's a phenomenon on the same spectrum as HN-Driven Development, where whatever one has last seen pos…
Just something to think about aswell. When things were simpler and there was less choice there was also more concentrated documentation. It wasn't a bad investment to by a book about a language.
Anecdotally, what I've seen is that older programmers, in addition to being programmers, also have the skills of a computer helpdesk technician. They can debug Windows problems, hardware problems, know how to mess with the BIOS, and have no problem installing or configuring any piece of software. This helps immensely when setting up your IDE or debugging weird problems with compiling. Younger programmers seem to comm…
I recognize this. My 'younger' colleagues can't install a computer from scratch, a get completely stuck on the slightest network issue. But I don't thin it is related to education. The 'older' programmer had to squire these skills by necessity as it was completely impossible to use a computer otherwise. For us getting a new release of Windows or VS usually meant wiping everything clean and install from scratch a we all knew how dodgy 'upgrading' was. My 'younger' colleagues wouldn't know where to begin when they can't hit update and everything works. They have to wait and rely on a system manager to re-image their machine for them.
Anecdotally, what I've seen is that older programmers, in addition to being programmers, also have the skills of a computer helpdesk technician. They can debug Windows problems, hardware problems, know how to mess with the BIOS, and have no problem installing or configuring any piece of software. This helps immensely when setting up your IDE or debugging weird problems with compiling. Younger programmers seem to comm…
I disagree. Creating a program that meets todays' users expectations is what's harder. But learning programming by itself, is way easier. We have Python, Ruby, Javascript... We have the Web as a platform and as documentation. We have communities and cheap, fast computers. The hello world has never been easier to do. What's hard is to make a real time offline first SPA with a beautiful responsive design that uses the…
The article is specifically discussing the ease of getting into an IDE on a new PC. When I started, I could turn on the PC, type “basic”, and press enter. Now, at minimum, I would need to know to start notepad, save an html file, point a browser at it, and type some html and js boilerplate. That’s what the article says is harder (except the article goes on to discuss installing other languages, which is even harder).
Try figuring out programming _and_ linking libraries you have to download off the internet (all before we had the kind of resources we have now).
The IDE wasn't enough, you needed to set a bunch of stuff up. And using any GUI? OK now you're learning Win32.
Sure, maybe it was easier to write the "number guessing game" in a text window. But only barely.