There are some underlying concepts, foundation ideas which didn't change much since 1960-70-80s, the time when they have been discovered, studied and defined.
Yes, people are piling up tons of crap in order to get money, and this is how we got a millions lines of meaningless Java code which no one could understand or maintain, which seems to work well only because most of unit-tests passed and hardware is so cheap.
I don't even want to mention current Javascript madness.
At the same time, however, almost nothing were added to the ideas expressed by John McCarthy, and followers.
Yes. They are stuffing tons of useless crap into new Scheme standard, as they did with Common Lisp, but, the underlying ideas and the principles of "less is more" and "good enough" remain unshaken, like mountains in Nepal.)
In a very rare occasions we still can witness some miracles. For example, the source code of this site - the engine and the language translator in which it written is less than one megabyte. (just imagine what amount of traffic it handles and how much money already created).
There are also Plan9, nginx and few other wonders.
So, in ones 50s one, perhaps, should enjoy knowing and applying these principles and ideas and produce ones own small wonders. Or teach others, as enlightened people like Gerald Jay Sussman or Brian Harvey do.
That's how I feel. I don't want to be a programmer when I'm 50, or even, preferably, when I'm 30. Trying to run to the top of a dune made of quicksand just doesn't seem like a good career move.
(Hell, every few months I find something new to feel obsolete about, usually to do with the fact that most programming nowadays seems to be web-dev and I'm just not into web-dev.)
On the other hand, I'd love to keep being a computer scientist until.... I don't even know what age. Sure, eventually I'll have a family and other priorities to take care of, but the wonderful thing about the scientific frontier is that it doesn't actually move that quickly. In science, ideas have to actually be tested and percolate through for a while before they become something ever single practitioner has to know.
Would you mind sharing the the "few other wonders"?
I've been able to pull many programming lessons from the other activity I enjoy, woodworking. When I first started, I was overwhelmed by the sheer number of items in catalogs and stores. I didn't know where to begin!
And then I discovered Japanese woodworking, and traditional woodworking, and people like James Krenov and Roy Underhill.
It is impressive what people have built with a small set of simple, sharp tools.
I love seeing these gems, regardless of the domain!
There are some underlying concepts, foundation ideas which didn't change much since 1960-70-80s, the time when they have been discovered, studied and defined.
Yes, people are piling up tons of crap in order to get money, and this is how we got a millions lines of meaningless Java code which no one could understand or maintain, which seems to work well only because most of unit-tests passed and hardware is so cheap.
I don't even want to mention current Javascript madness.
At the same time, however, almost nothing were added to the ideas expressed by John McCarthy, and followers.
Yes. They are stuffing tons of useless crap into new Scheme standard, as they did with Common Lisp, but, the underlying ideas and the principles of "less is more" and "good enough" remain unshaken, like mountains in Nepal.)
In a very rare occasions we still can witness some miracles. For example, the source code of this site - the engine and the language translator in which it written is less than one megabyte. (just imagine what amount of traffic it handles and how much money already created).
There are also Plan9, nginx and few other wonders.
So, in ones 50s one, perhaps, should enjoy knowing and applying these principles and ideas and produce ones own small wonders. Or teach others, as enlightened people like Gerald Jay Sussman or Brian Harvey do.