|
|
|
|
|
|
by codeulike
2849 days ago
|
|
|
I do not envy the kids who nowadays stand 0 change to ever learn the complete stack of code running on any modern device. I also started back when things were simple (BBC B with interpreted BASIC, no GUI). Having transitioned to modern development, I think the bare bones system was good for self-learning. But for the last 2 decades I've worked on systems where many layers were hidden from me (Windows, RDBMS, Salesforce etc) and most of the time it doesn't matter. I very rarely need to learn anything about low levels Windows stuff. With SQL Server you need to learn a bit about query plans and how to influence them, and where to put indexes. But mostly, you can ignore lower layers and just let them get on with what they do. And thats the whole point isn't it? One huge exception to this is the modern web stack, if you think of the browser as the bare metal, with HTML and JS and CSS as some sort of machine code. On top of that you have Content Management systems and PHP and so so many JS frameworks. And whatever you do, soon enough you need to get down to the HTML/JS/CSS level. So thats the modern equivalent to our experience of the old days - no matter how many frameworks and CMSs we throw at the web, everyone still has to know their HTML/JS/CSS to get anywhere. Perhaps one day we will escape from that and people will reminisce about angle brackets and escaping ampersands. |
|
|
It's true.
However to have an understanding of things from top to bottom is definitely a benefit. People get silo'd in their various layers and lack comprehension of much that's going on below (or above) them.
It can make you a more rounded developer, to have a good idea of the whole stack, even if it's not always in-depth and some of the mental models used aren't strictly true.