[agentultra]

That's not a dystopian future.

I appreciate the honesty. I've spoke with my developers faced with the same situation. The common theme is that they have better things to do. That's fine too. Not everyone is interested in digging into combinatorial algorithms and why should they be? We all have varying levels of interest in the field. It only seems reasonable that you should be able to use what you need of it to get your tasks done.

You certainly don't need the plethora of front-end frameworks and tools to make a good site today. Those tools are great when you need them for large, modular user interface applications. It's still as easy today as it was ten years ago to set up a dynamic web site. PHP is still around if that's your game and there's no shame in using it. Use what works and get it done.

Nobody is going to take away your license.

I'm 32. I still love programming. I go through morose periods where I lament the lack of innovation and ingenuity that the industry had in spades while I was growing up. Settling into a world of incremental improvements and watching the end of Moore's law approaching is disturbing. However I can't stop. It's what I do. But instead of focusing on new frameworks or languages I have moved more towards pure mathematics and finding applications or links to computer science. Knuth's work has been taking on new dimensions for me in recent years. I've obsessively digested everything that Sussman, Friedman and Felleisen have written. I've meditated on the ANSI C specification and the CLHS. I enjoy talks on the nature of computing and speculation about the future. It's an exciting field for me that is just ripe with fruit.

That said it's also healthy to encourage an interest in other things as well. My daughter. Literature. Music. Chemistry. Electronics... these are my digressions. I always come back to programming though.