[Yeask]

Have you not noticed that the story you reference is so well know because... literally every single developer thinks people like Mel are crazy?

Mel or Terry Adams are the exception to the rule... Having that image of greybeards only come if you have never worked with one in real life, sorry you are biased.

[kbelder]

What? Mel is regarded as deserving massive respect, not as crazy. If a developer thinks Mel is nuts, they are coming from a perspective I don't understand.

And yes, the shift to higher level languages like C, FORTRAN, etc., was regarded by some as pandering to the new generation that didn't want to actually learn programming.

With some truth, in my opinion. I think higher level languages bring huge benefits, so I'm not bemoaning their existence. But it still weirds me out when there's a professional developer that doesn't have at least a cursory knowledge of assembly. AI programming assistance (which I'm sure will be very different than today's 'vibe coding') does seem like a similar state change. I certainly don't object to it in principle, it will probably be a large productivity improvement.

But I'm sure that with it, there will be the loss of fundamental knowledge for some people. Like digital artists who never learn the properties of real paint.