[saschajustin]

Young people, new programmers, and other groups who have no power are not responsible for the nature of a field.

Old people control the nature of every field. Old greybeards are the ones who made computer science this way--it's just those greybeards that this man disaproves of.

This man isn't a billionaire VC, a tenured Comp Sci professor, an author of programming books, or a CEO hiring and training the kinds of employees he wants.

This guy isn't in charge, so he blames young people and assumes they are in charge. Ridiculous. Young people are just followers. They follow the money, they do what they're told, they adopt fashions in order to SURVIVE, not out of some kind of "strange entitlement."

[dlhdesign]

> This guy isn't in charge, so he blames young people and assumes they are in charge.

What makes you think he's not "in charge"?

> Young people are just followers. They follow the money, they do what they're told, they adopt fashions in order to SURVIVE, not out of some kind of "strange entitlement."

If you are young and believe this, I am sad for you.

"Youth" (those in their 20's, for example) have some of the best kind of power - the unfettered kind. As a generalization/simplification, those in their 20's have fewer dedicated costs in their lives (rent and food at the least; car payment perhaps). That gives them the freedom to CHOOSE. That's the power of youth - choice. In youth, a person can choose to lift up and move. Can choose to quit - or stay at - a job because of principals. Can choose to change careers, become an expert in one field or a generalist in many. I won't go so far as to say all things are possible, but there are certainly many paths that could be traveled with relative (key part there - relative) ease. As we get older, the dedicated costs (generally - there are certainly exceptions) go up. House payments. Kids. Medical expenses (personal and family). Income may (or may not) go up, but it's almost certain that key life options will decline. There are still choices to make and control of life to be had for sure, but they are not so numerous; the road does not web outward as it did in youth so much as it forks in minor directional changes.

So - if anyone out there is still in their youth (which is more a state of mind than physical being, mind), I suggest you try different things. Experiment with life. Follow your true passions and see where they lead. The author of this blog (and myself; and others) did that and it turned out that our passions would become an industry that would change the world. I only hope your passions (if you have the heart to chase them) will yield the same so that we can share in that. We can use this thing that we were around to see birthed to do so. Or something better if you prefer; but you'll need to make that happen because we're tired and just want to enjoy our time with our communal child as long as we can, please.

[jacquesm]

One young guy named Linus Torvalds upset a whole pile of holy applecarts, as a student, no less, a guy called Mark Zuckerberg built one of the most visited websites on the planet, two other guys built the most frequented search engine while still in college and so on.

He doesn't care at all about not being in charge. He cares about people not wanting nor caring about getting some deeper levels of knowledge required to do their jobs properly and as a cause he sees that they are money oriented first, and tech oriented second.

[saschajustin]

Linus is 45 years old. He's not a millenial, he's a greybeard.

Zuckerberg never made any technological advances. His company was a market success but it was based on LAMP... nothing technologically novel about it. Not even the concept was novel--it was a direct myspace rip off.

I'm sure there will be millenials who have an influence on the technology and direction of software. But they certainly aren't the people in charge TODAY and they certainly are not responsible for the state of tech today.

[jacquesm]

If you think 45 years old is a greybeard then I think I've lost you, and Linus made most of his impact before he even had a beard.

Facebook was anything but a Myspace rip-off, Myspace was to Facebook as Geocities was to Digital Ocean or Altavista to Google.

[saschajustin]

Linus' beard maybe isn't yet long enough to count as "grey" but, in any case, he's not a millenial. He entered the field circa 1990, whereas this self-proclaimed greybeard author started in 1995.

So for the discussion of this article Linus is even older/greyer than the self-proclaimed "get off my lawn" author.

Zuck is a millenial but he's far more of a businessman than he is a programmer.

Zuck hasn't really programmed since Facebook took off. He's a business owner/operator, not an engineer. Writing an MVP LAMP webapp that is then fixed up by others is NOT the same as having an influence on the processes and procedures used in the construction of software--which is what the OP is complaining about.

Facebook was a business success not a technology success.

[kyled]

You're missing the point. He's talking about the passion for learning about computers. When was the last time you reversed engineered a binary that had self modifying code, just for the fun of it and to learn how it works? Play same code golf games or war games, purely for the challenge? There's nothing wrong with people making money. It's the fact that people are doing it just for the money. I think there is a video called the bbs documentary. Check it out. The culture surrounding computers has changed, a lot.