   the coder generation
  I just though, all the programmers in the world at the moment over the age of about 16 will have been brought up using computers which assumed you could code.The old ZX81s, sinclair, bla bla all used BASIC as their "OS". There were those naff 80s books and magazines that had games you coded in and stuff. Even people my age (17) probably first used computers with dos on them with qbasic.But what about people younger or still to be born? They''ll be using the "user friendly" windows system most likely. Where''s the skill in that? What''s there to entice them into programming?Sure there will always be people interested and will buy VC++ or something, but all the people who might have got into it through learning some basic on their micro will be lost.So am I being alarmist or are we about to lose the programming enthusiast generation, and possibly the majority of skilled programmers, left only with a few rouges and millions of microsoft certified "I did a year''s programming course" professionals?PS: I mentioned something I programmed a while back to this kid. He shrieked at me something along the lines of "you mean you know the secret of computer coding!?!". What has N64 magazine been telling them?God I''m turning into an old git already. Help me. 
  Hey, if less programmers show up, the ones that do will be more honestly interested, and we''ll all get payed higher wages .    "Finger to spiritual emptiness underlying everything." -- How a C manual referred to a "pointer to void."  --Things People Saidhttp://druidgames.cjb.net/;  I have thought the same thing! Are they going to just start teaching windows programming right away? I think that would be too much to absorb IMHO. That is why I am glad that I got into programming when I did... I still wish I got into it earlier, but I know that I won''t have the steep learning curve that comp-sci students are going to face 10 years from now! In the 10 or so year I have been playing with computers I have gone from the 8086 to my PIII, with plenty of better options available now! What is going to happen in the next 10 years? At least I got to stay with one architecture ( for the most part ) I blows me away when I tell 15 year olds about DOS! They just looked confused and say "What''s that?" I am sure all the younger guys on this board have all used DOS but they are probably a minority. "You won''t get wise with the sleep still in your eyes." - Neil Peart  ;  Heh - I''m one of those 17 year old "old gits". Let''s face it, the more that OOP takes over, the less and less that new programmers are going to need to know.My Comp Sci. degree at uni is a piece of s**t. The Comp Sci. subject just teaches Java. So that your code is already platform independent and *gasp* (if anyone cares about this anymore) machine independent!Not only that, but it is aimed at 6 y.o. people I swear..."Now, young computer scientists, this is what we call ''encapsulation'', this idea forces or ''encourages'' ''abstraction''" (cue writing both words on board and pronouncing each syllable at a time). Okay, I admit he didn''t write the words on the board, but this is exactly the kind of thing that this moron says.If you think programmers are going to have a steep learning curve in ten years time. Think again - I think we are breeding a new generation of shitwits who''ll have no idea what a pointer is, let alone memory or something like that. The industry is already full of morons as it is - and it''ll only get worse. In fact, in our Uni course, they haven''t taught us anything about the machine itself...we vaguely went over the Jon Von Neumann model of a computer during a lecture (totally irrelevant to teaching computer science if you ask me).I want to go to some place in Europe where the education system takes itself more seriously.;  I think the whole reason people are so worried about this subject is because it seems so easy to do, no wonder it''s #1. ANyway, It isn''t easy to do, it''s actually really hard...or at least it creates a damn good illusion. Programming is an art and AI can never replace creativity...at least I hope it will never...    ---------------------------------------------Resist {noun}  ;  17yo git! Hell I am a 21 year old fogey! I actually find uni a good "additional" source to learn stuff. If someone only knows what they are taught at school then I think they would be useless. We are also being taught in JAVA, and most of the students embrace it because it is easier. I don''t mind using JAVA to learning programming concepts because I teach myself the C++ equivalent at home. I have admired all my professors for not dumbing things down... in fact they have made things more advanced because of our saturated comp-sci program. Also I enjoyed the lecture on the Neumann model of a compter , I sort of wish we had a computer history course!Is this relate to what is called the Ingenuity Gap? Where the complexity of problems are getting so large that people can''t keep up with the knowledge required to solve them. I haven''t read much about it so this is a word of mouth explanation more or less. "You won''t get wise with the sleep still in your eyes." - Neil Peart  ;quote:Original post by Maitrek  Think again - I think we are breeding a new generation of shitwits who''ll have no idea what a pointer is, let alone memory or something like that.  I think that might be a more accurate guess than just having people being uninterested in programming. There is a lot of that already, actually... people who know how to use a high-level API but don''t know anything about what''s happening behind the scenes. The people who know the details will always, always be able to utilize the high-level stuff more efficiently.    -Ironblayde Aeon SoftwareDown with Tiberia!"All your women are belong to me." - Nekrophidius;  Dont kid yourself, there are good schools, teaching good stuff.  I''m in a great CS program, and having a blast right now learning a ton of great things.  There will always be shitwits, but, there will also be smart individuals as well.  As far as i know, the good cs programs still teach computer architecture, assembly languages and use a good language for teaching data structures.  My first 3 CompSci courses were taught in C++, but object oriented programming was taught in java, this was obviously to force you to use oo techniques and thus absorb the basic idea of the course.  Not only that, these programs usually are math intensive, i''m only 6 credits from a math minor..Anyhow, dont judge professionals on what you read here on this kiddie board, the industry is not full of morons.  I''ve worked for several engineering firms around my area as an intern.  When I started doing real work, coding, design, I didnt deal with "train to hire" folks that much, but wrather a lot of young and old, competent compsci''s, ee''s, and the occasional lone maverick genius type.  I have run into a lot of VB, networking, sys admin types at times that dont know shit about software engineering, but they know the intricacies of Win2000, unix, firewalls, and all the other crap i dont really care about.  Until i actually need to engineer a program to communicate through W2000, across a firewall, etc. I''m not going to learn the details of that system unless i need to.  The point is, at least i can learn that stuff on my own, and have already learned the difficult engineering stuff in school.;  You might as well add me to the 17 year old git list.  I have programmed in basic and apple IIe visual pascal, visual basic, and finally C++.    ;  As long as there are computer games there will be kids wanting to make them   Regardless of how "simple" the OS is...Programming is definately an Art...in order to be good at it you must be logical and creative.  There will always be people (kids esp.) that will use the computer to fill this logical/creative need.  Epolevne