[dperks]

I think the point is that you had to be deeply curious and more of a "hacker" or "computer nerd" type to be able to figure things out.

But I think the same applies to not just AI but various tools that have abstracted away the complexity of things over the years.

For example, I would imagine the average person deploying some sort of web app or API today knows far less about networking and infrastructure than someone doing it 10 to 20 years ago.

[xienze]

Yes, exactly. I'm reminded of the articles detailing how Gen Z has fewer computer skills than previous generations because computing has become so abstracted -- turn on iPhone, tap button. "What's a directory?" -- files just kind of exist on these devices without any real notion of _where_, as far as the user knows. Stuff like that.

Compare that to say 30ish years ago. If you wanted to do something as simple as play a computer game you had to know how to navigate a command line, know about device drivers, make a boot disk, etc. Users were a whole lot closer to the realities of what makes computing work. And no internet, at least as we know it now. You really had to have a certain mindset to be a developer.

It's a far cry from "hey Claude make an app."