Where have all the hackers gone?

"Ruby is so much better than Java! Look at how you open a file in Java (shows you 30 lines) vs. Ruby! (2 lines)"

Ruby Example.

================

  begin
    File.open("/path/to/your/file.txt", "r") do |file|
      file.each_line do |line|
        puts line
      end
    end
  rescue Errno::ENOENT
    puts "File not found"
  rescue Exception => e
    puts "An error occurred: #{e.message}"
  end

================

  public class Main {
      public static void main(String[] args) {
          String filePath = "/path/to/your/file.txt";
          try (Stream lines = Files.lines(Paths.get(filePath))) {
              lines.forEach(System.out::println);
          } catch (IOException e) {
              e.printStackTrace();
          }
      }
  }

The author has a list of reasons (VC money, business culture, managers, fear of the unknown).

I, personally, have observed this reduction over my career, and I have my own idea of why that might be, my own phrasing of it. Perhaps it gets at the same thing as the author from a different angle.

I think the reason, plain and simple, is that most developers aren't really in it for the passion anymore, but rather the money.

When I first started coding, I didn't get paid. I didn't think I ever would. I was just having fun building stuff for myself. I, and the other people like that, moved into the workforce and brought that level of curiosity. Of hacker spirit.

However, as the idea of "programming makes money" became more well known, and bootcamps + college both upped their game, more and more people started coding just with the hopes to make money. To get good enough to make money, not care about "huh, how does the bootloader actually work" or "Why did chrome just crash, let me open up gdb...".

At the same time, I think other people who came into tech when it was a less obvious career path (and thus was something you usually discovered based on having some initial interest outside of "I want a paycheck") are getting older. They're getting older, having kids, and now also have a reason to treat their job as a 9-5. "Chrome crashed, I could open gdb and figure it out... but I'd rather watch my kid's soccer game".

I think new hackers still form, but they're diluted by programming becoming a career path desired for money, not just for a love of programming itself. I think existing hackers, over time, also often become less hacker due to life slowly grinding them down.

If Harvard started admitting 50,000 students a year, the density of Zuckerbergs would be a lot lower. They'd still be there, but harder to find.