I’ve enjoyed working recently on a few projects with Raj Vasa. Raj is an academic currently working at Swinburne University here in Melbourne. Whenever I work with someone, I like to add them to my Linked-In network. One of the benefits of that is that I get to learn a bit more about them. Raj, I learned, has a blog. And he’s got some great stuff to say about IT — which stands to reason given that he’s been in the game for 20 years!
His latest article begins by reviewing the book Coders at Work
The article devolves from a straight book review into a reflection on the The Next Generation of software developers. And that’s a topic that’s close to my heart.
I began writing software on a Commodore VIC=20 back in the early 80s. I bought Osborne books from Kmart and made my sisters read aloud the code listings in the back as I typed them in. At first I just typed. It was all gobledy gook to me. But as I typed I learned just by the flow of information over me and an insatiable curiosity to meddle. (What if I poked different addresses?)
The VIC=20 didn’t come with a GUI. It didn’t even come with software. Just a command line prompt that said READY.. Ready for what? Well it was just ready. Back then, computers were a blank slate just waiting for the operator to make them do something. They turned on instantly because they didn’t have to start a thousand small programs in the background.
And so I learned.
But what about the new crop of programmers? They don’t have that fundamental understanding. They start with a pretty GUI and a million available code libraries and a complex object-oriented language.
As an IT manager this scares me. Will I be able to hire developer in 10 years time that have the fundamentals that allow them to be great programmers? Or are we heading for a slump where there’s only the mediocre available to the average software team?
Apparently the Linux project is already noticing that their developers are getting older, not younger. Who will write the next operating system? Will we get to Windows 15 and not have anyone who knows enough to make Windows 16?
While I sleep through nightmares, I wake up realising that the legends in Coders at Work scoff at me and my thinking that writing BASIC on a VIC=20 gave me any insight into the fundamentals. These are the people that wrote BASIC. These are the gods that think in ones and zeroes.
We’re probably going to be ok. Probably.
