[eeeeaaii]

I hear this over and over again and I wonder why nobody frames this as a generational thing. The Apple II came out in 1977. I'm 41 now, so back then I was 8, still learning how to think, how to process the world. I wrote my first computer program in 6th grade -- I grew up with computers. But somebody who is 51 now was 18 when the Apple II came out, already well into their teenage years, and probably already thinking about what they wanted to do with their life. Unless their parents were scientists or researchers there was very little chance they had ever seen or laid hands on a computer.

One thing I fear is that there's a rise and fall to this. In other words, the fear is that younger generations are just not as interested in computers anymore... in other words, the past 20-30 years or so has been a "golden age" for computers that is slowly coming to an end. Data bears this out: http://www.collegian.psu.edu/archive/2008/03/21/computer_sci...

Let's look at popular music. Baby boomers grew up listening to records and the radio, and in their run they made some amazing music. It was an exciting time to be in a band, everyone was doing it, and some really great music was made. Back then, they said "if it's too loud, you're too old." Everybody talked about youth then.

What happened? People kept on believing that rock and roll was for the young, and there were more and more ways to access music and the technology for making music got better and better, but the reality was that the music itself just got worse and worse. The moment was over -- the Vietnam war, the sexual revolution and womens’ movement, the civil rights movement -- it was all in the past, and kids in the 80's, 90's etc. just had nothing to write songs about anymore, and (very much generalizing here) nobody practiced their instruments anymore because -- why? It was all about getting that record deal and getting famous. The more you unpack it, the more dismal it appears. Those great hits you remember from the 80's, 90's, etc? Look more deeply into it and you'll find in many, many cases there were baby boomers advising, producing, writing, performing -- basically still running the show. These days, popular music is a shell of its former self. Which isn't to say that there's isn't good music being made. But the quantity and the quality of the music just isn't what it was.

There have been plenty of other "golden ages" throughout history, in the arts, philosophy, literature, architecture, etc, etc. It's reasonable to assume that there will continue to be “golden ages” with regard to more modern pursuits, such as rock music and computer programming. Who knows how long programming’s first “golden age” will last? Maybe it’s just getting started, maybe it's coming to an end, or maybe it’s already ended. Regardless though, it's probably safe to say that someone who is currently in their 50's pre-dates programming’s first "golden age" and probably doesn't parse the world the same way as somebody who grew up in the thick of things. Which doesn’t actually mean that someone in their 50’s can’t be a good programmer, by the way, it’s a generalization, not an absolute.

These days, when I come on hacker news and I see another yet another article about a completely boring social-media who-cares php-based startup with kids at the helm, when I see how weak Facebook is as a technical platform (28 year old CEO) especially when compared with Google (40 year old CEO), when I see how much kids these days rely on bolting shit together and copying and pasting code without even knowing how that stuff works, it makes me fear for programming. Again, I’m generalizing, there are plenty of good programmers under 25, and plenty of good programmers over 40, please don’t take offense if you’re outside of that age range. My worry is not that good, young programmers don’t exist, my worry is that their numbers are decreasing.

[Someone]

Minor correction: 51 year olds were 15 when the Apple ][ came out, not 18.

And they had seen computers, just not personal computers. Exhibits showing line printers printing ASCII (or, more likely, EBCDIC) art were fairly common views. Any technically inclined kid in a rich country would have seen one (touching is something else)

Also, I don't think we have fewer good low-level programmers; they just get lost in a sea of glue-blocks-together experts (that, by the way, has its place, too)