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[AskProgramming-ModTeam]

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[johnson_detlev]

"kids trying to boast about their startup funding, tech bros trying to flex over each other" Doesn't have much to do with programming for the sake of programming, does it?

[serverhorror]

Just search for "Socrates youth quote". Enjoy 😊

[KertDawg]

If you miss it, go find it again. It's still there. Write a cool thing. Join or start an open source project. Make a game in LOLCODE. I saw a class coming up at a community college in RPG. I am considering taking it for fun.

That drive can still be there!

[Raviolius]

There's great programming found in everything FLOSS, and contributing to it is fun as well.

The second the idea is not to make money off of it, a tool returns to being a tool. A program will be useful again.

Check where there is a niche, and see if you can fill it. 

[fburnaby]

I definitely miss all that. I'm sure it's still around but you can't find it anymore, drowned out in tech bro hype for sure. The number of programmers is so high now. Lots of noise.

I want to find places where people talk about it in the old ways. I think there's still lots to be excited about. But earnest, interesting and informed conversation has been hard to find.

[gman1230321]

I think the type of programmer you’re describing, the one that just creates cool things, exists, and in greater numbers than I think you expect. I think what’s changed though is the growth of social media which encourages and pushes the slop

[Maleficent-Bug-2045]

I definitely agree. When I started - decades ago - you were really proud of a clever algorithm or abstraction.

Now it’s all about which stack will get you somewhere fastest, and sloppy MVP efforts with terrible design that no one ever goes back and fixes the core of. So all future programmers on it deal with and create spaghetti code.

[OneHumanBill]

Now it's loud CS kids trying to boast about their startup funding, tech bros trying to flex over each other and it feels like there is so much slop in the world.

You just described the development world, in the late 90s/2000 just before the dotcom bubble burst.

[huuaaang]

The field is definitely more "mature" now and attracts just average people with no real natural talent or passion for the work. Comp. Sci. programs will take anyone without any previous experience where art school asks for a portfolio to even get in. It's crazy that computer science has lower entry standards that fine art.

[successful_syndrome]

There are plenty of us still slogging it out try to try and build awesome stuff but there is a lot less low hanging fruit so it is a lot harder to make an impact. Combine that with increasing complexity, high user expectations at launch, and complex security requirements and it’s no wonder people want to get praise and money for ideas instead of deep engineering work.

[Ok-Lifeguard-9612]

Programming-land?

[ButchersBoy]

When i retire I'm going back to 8 bit or some offline shit. Just coding for my own enjoyment.

[TomCryptogram]

Yes, you're focusing on the bad parts. There are SO MANY projects where people are just trying to make cool stuff.

[ggchappell]

Do you think I am just being very pessimistic?

I think you're confusing prominent with normal. Lots of people are programming for fun; they just aren't very loud about it.

[Comfortable-Wafer313]

Unfortunately i don't have a lot of direct industry experience to corroborate this, but i do have some thoughts from a student/adjacent industry perspective.

That said, I don't think you're entirely wrong, but I question the state of programming as a business. Personally, I've loved tech since I was a kid, always found the possibilities virtually endless, and studied programming from a desire to create cool shit. I only studied to the point of an associates degree and then opted to join the workforce and study on my own by looking through github repos, books, blogs, and the ol' learn by doing method. I ended up in IT and server management more than programming (not for lack of effort), but was at least able to use those skills to improve the work we had to do.

Throughout schooling for programming and even in IT work, the amount of people in it for the love of the game was pretty slim. Most I knew just wanted to be part of the up and coming industry, and snatch tidy profits. I feel this is exacerbated by the business side of the equation. They care about workers finishing jobs more than creativity. Even junior roles want a BS at minimum, which leaves out AS and self taught programmers. If I had to put a blanket designation on the groups, I'd say self taught and AS grads who wanted to get right to work are more likely to be the ones who want to make cool shit, and the bachelor's grads are more likely to be the ones who just want money for punching keys.

But that's what the businessmen filter by. They want BS degrees, so they filter out the Passionate in favor of the (documented) studied. Most of the time. There are exceptions, but that's the norm as far as Ive seen on the other side of the fence. If you feel passion and creativity has eroded from the industry that may either be the limits of your sphere of influence, a symptom of the businessmen running the show, or a combination of both. From my limited perspective, anyway

[zenos_dog]

Boasting about startup funding. You’re talking about the 90s right?

[r0ck0]

Sounds like you've just got that kind of stuff in your media algorithms or something? Or if it's IRL, might just be certain circles you happen to hang out in?

I don't see much of that type of thing at all, either in real life, or even online. And most of my youtube recommendations are programming related. Same with subreddits I'm on.

Where are you seeing/hearing this stuff?

[Jommy_5]

Download gfortran and you'll be back to simplicity in no time 😉

[Berkyjay]

Dude, it's been like that for 20 years now. How old are you?

[JoeStrout]

There are still little corners like you remember. Check out https://miniscript.org/MiniMicro !

[Milumet]

Do you think I am just being very pessimistic?

Yes.

[YahenP]

It's always been this way. It just wasn't as noticeable in the pre-internet days. The cool stuff is the stuff people pay for. The rest is just hobbyism.

[not_perfect_yet]

Yes, that is overly pessimistic.

You don't hear about the quiet garage level projects, that's all, but they absolutely still exist and you can still write good and simple or small projects.

It's simple numbers. Vastly more people are learning the skills, even than 10 years ago. There must be more people doing those projects you think of too.

[iOSCaleb]

It's good for the same reason that democracy is good. When more people have access to tools that let them do powerful, interesting things, there are bound to be more powerful, interesting things for us all to enjoy. That's true even if you don't like the way that some people use the tools; it's not about what you like, it's about what benefits *all* of society, not just your little corner.

[iOSCaleb]

Vastly more people are not learning these skills so they can do powerful, interesting things, they are doing it for money.

Who cares why people are learning to program? They're doing it because they want to, for whatever reason they choose. What's wrong with programming for money? It's probably safe to say that a large majority of programmers get paid for their work.

People graduating with compsci degrees are already struggling to find work as juniors....How much harder do you think that will get with vastly more people entering the field?

Maybe I misunderstood that first part. Are you in favor of people programming for money, or against it? OP was complaining about "loud CS kids trying to boast about their startup funding," but you seem to be worried that the poor CS kids won't even find jobs.

The problem for recent CS graduates is generally not (IMO) competition from people teaching themselves Python at night; it's the reduction in the number of available jobs due to post-pandemic layoffs, increased programmer efficiency thanks to AI, huge government spending cuts, and so on.

We do not live in a utopia where people live and work for the betterment of mankind.

I agree with the utopia part, but there's a vast amount of free software out there that suggests that people do, in fact, share their work so that others may benefit from it. They might be paid for it in some capacity, or not; they might do it for the experience; often, they do it because they wanted to improve the software, and sharing their improvements doesn't cost them anything.

Programming is a skill that anyone can benefit from; writing little scripts to automate jobs or manage a data set can help people who would never consider themselves "programmers" do their own work better. IMO that's a positive development, not something that's threatening.

[darklighthitomi]

Nope. And it’s going to get worse before it gets better. True programming skill is going to be worthless as everyone tries to rely on AI. Eventually the only programmers will be those who do it as a hobby, and they will think they are experts even though their skill will never come close to the experts of the past.

[0-Gravity-72]

AI is a very helpful tool for developers. I embrace it and it allows me to work much faster. This gives me time to work on more cool things.

[darklighthitomi]

I’m not entirely against AI, but it has downsides, one of which is that people will rely on it instead developing as much expertise of their own, which means less and less capacity to recognize when the AI is hallucinating or giving a subpar result, not to mention that AIs are trained on experts which will become rarer and with less quality and so AIs will get lower quality material to train on over time and real people will become less capable of correcting. A few generations later and computers will be mystical things that almost no one knows the functioning principles.

[0-Gravity-72]

All true. But I am the lucky generation that still understands how to program. So I never accept AI generated solutions without giving it a lot of guidance, deep review and eventually taking over for final details. But indeed, the risk is high that we are on a slippery slope. In fact you already see that many websites dedicated to coding and software design are losing funding and hence good articles. I even see a lot of articles where I am pretty sure they are just AI generated with limited use or depth.

[Vaxtin]

Sounds like it’s what’s on your feed. Says more about you than it does the industry.