[wiz21c]

Yeah, but the problem is that it takes time. Learning assembly takes time ('cos you need to understand the whole system at the level of machine code : bios calls, memory protections, interrupts, DMA, graphics cards, sound card, I/O,...). Then you have to go up a level into the OS stuff (hello file systems, processes, threading, paging). Then once you get that, you have to learn how a (extreme example) Java VM connects to all of that (welcome GC, optimization, compiler, byte code). then, ah finally, something one can easily understand : Java code :-)

(and don't even start me on WS/rest over HTTS over SSL over IP).

Learning stack by stack, one generation at a time, let us, old gray beards, digest the whole thing. But now, starting from scratch ? Not even with a 10 feet pole.

[linkmotif]

Yeah it’s not the same but it’s amazing starting from scratch at a new baseline. Every generation of humans has had to do that with everything.

I missed out on all the stuff you mentioned and really want to learn it, but I am grateful that I get to use all this stuff that’s developed. Instead of spending time learning the above listed fundamentals, which would have been revelatory in its own way, I have the opportunity to use Java on Kubernetes to build and operate globally whatever Internet software dream comes to mind. It’s not the end all, and I am crippled by lacking fundamentals, but it’s so much more than before and I am grateful to have the opportunity to have these tools.

[wiz21c]

Well, admitedly, I don't use all that knowledge at all times. Like many around, I'm super satisfied by being able to write a very complex SQL query knowing that : I won't be constrained by memory, I don't have to think about why the transaction will work, why my connection to the DB will work, how the SQL engine will optimize the damn thing. I just have to contemplate something that it almost business code and produces almost business results.

It's just that I have that warm, reassuring feeeling that if I have to dig down, I'll be able to. Too bad I almost never have to; abstraction works way too good :-)

I'm sure one can be a very good programmer not knowing the assembly stuff behind. And even myself, I don't know exatcly how a CPU works (I mean, I get the logic of it, but I wouldn't be able to make one from scratch) :-)