[bliti]

As someone who started programming during the mid 80's:

- Everything I've learned may be applied to most languages. Meaning that writing testable code generally translates from BASIC to Javascript.

- Programming should always make you feel stupid. Feeling comfortable with something means that you stopped learning new things.

- Experience != Knowledge. My biggest issue with some older programmers is that they tend to confuse experience with a language, codebase, or framework with knowledge. The more you learn the less experience you will have. Think about it. You start learning Javascript after years of working with C#. What does that experience work for now? You will surely have an understanding of all the basics. But you have not yet been bitten by the == and === operators. You have to get that new experience. As time passes you will realize that it becomes a game of knowing enough versus being experienced enough.

- New technologies are exciting. A lot of people are scared by them. They feel they will be replaced. Their comfy jobs taken away. I'm not scared of this. Change is exciting because it means that I will have the chance to learn something.

- New languages might be rehashed versions of older ones. But they contain something different: Somebody else did it. That's reason enough to give it a try. Javascript might not be the most universally praised language, and it doesn't really bring much new to the scene. Its still someones interpretation of how a given problem should be solved. You might not agree with it, but that wont stop people from writing lots of JS code.

- Nostalgia is fine. Don't let it get you. Sure, I miss typing BASIC into my old C64, but its no longer relevant. I could pick up demo'ing as a hobby and learn lots of stuff about old chips and memory management tricks. It wont really help me to stay employed much.

- All these new devices are scary! I grew up programming for one kind of device. Now I have to take into account tablets, phones, tvs, and whatnot. Embrace it. Mobile is here to stay. It will keep morphing and completely remove desktop computing as we know it. The same way desktop computers removed mainframes and terminals. It is scary. Try and get excited. There is nothing more mind blowing than watching a several months old child tap on a tablet to play a game.

/old guy rant

[no1publicenemy]

With all due respect, how would mobile devices replace/match the computing experience I have now with my 27" computer?

How would be that possible?

Good spirit and even better understanding of the Zeitgeist :)

[demachina]

Mobile devices will presumably jack in to large monitors or head mounted displays of some kind, plus a good keyboard of some kind, and pointing device(track pad). Thanks to Moores law you should be able to have the equivalent of a desktop experience driven by a mobile device soon.

The one problem is being slave to Apple and Google having absolute control of the OS, software and apps you can run. The only plus is their hegemony does help with security but neither one of them is even remotely trustable with the keys to every personal computer on the planet. There is irony that the creator of the big brother commercial in 1984 is increasingly, you know, big brother.

P.S.

Not sure how Daves self promotion blogging rose so far on hacker news. It actually has almost nothing to do with Doug Engelbart. He was just name dropping, something he often does, before doing what he usually does, self promotion. Yes there is that age discrimination angle which plays well with some old programmers, but not me.

People who spend their time complaining about discrimination should spend more time doing something that people will value regardless of your age, sex or gender. At that point your age, sex and gender become irrelevent especially on the Internet which tends to be blind to these things until you wear them on your sleeve. Dave likes to use his age to promote a martyr complex angle.

Ive looked at most of Daves recent projects and none of them are particularly interesting.

[nine_k]

Do you happen to have a TV? A fine large display for most folks.

For pros (programmers) there will continue to exist dedicated large displays, pro keyboards and whatever else. Look at professional gear of audio or video engineers, or CAD users, they have pretty impressive devices to use with computers. It's just not what mass users have at home.

Fully offline desktop computing will remain possible, much like running a C64 or an MSX machine (possibly in a form of new, much cooler hardware) remains possible. It's just not very relevant.

[smacktoward]

They don't, but they're actually not bad analogues for the computing experience we had a couple decades ago. The original 128K Mac (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_128K) had a 9" display, after all -- not that much smaller than the display you get on an iPad Air. I bet someone who learned how to develop great UIs on those Macs would be right at home doing the same on a smartphone or tablet.

[bliti]

I don't know. Didn't oculus announce a 2016 launch? I wish I knew. It'd be nice to be involved with the people who change computing once again. :)

[vezzy-fnord]

It will keep morphing and completely remove desktop computing as we know it. The same way desktop computers removed mainframes and terminals.

I wonder when smartphone platforms will become self-hosting.

[bliti]

Me too. Just give it a bit if time. When some yet to be born kid realizes how dumb and wasteful the cloud is (their words, not mine) and comes up with whatever it is that will replace them. Just like those meddling kids came up with that thing that allows me to type this post without a physical keyboard.

[darkmighty]

It's not so simple, if you look from first principles. It will always depend on the cost of communicating versus the benefits of economies of scale in computing. Currently, most many can only be done in the cloud due to the massive scale benefits and relatively low communication costs. If communicating doesn't get cheaper but smartphones get massively more powerful and roomy overnight this might change; but it is a fact of computer science that there are economies of scale to lumping queries from different users.

[mark-r]

> Mobile is here to stay. It will keep morphing and completely remove desktop computing as we know it. The same way desktop computers removed mainframes and terminals.

We've largely circled back to the mainframe/terminal model, except with a prettier face. Your mobile device is the terminal, and the server cloud is the mainframe.

[_random_]

Think about it. You start learning Javascript after years of working with C#.

The thought is: "What, again!? Haven't we buried this weakly-typed language back in the 90s, years before C# had been released?"