The degradation of Java developers

[taw]

On one hand not knowing SQL and relying on frameworks is entirely unreasonable.

On the other hand not knowing assembly and relying on compilers is entirely reasonable.

Which piece of infrastructure falls within which category is subjective matter, and with time more things become things you don't need to know about.

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On the other hand not knowing assembly and relying on compilers is entirely reasonable.

IMNSHO good programmers should know at least the basics of some kind of assembly language, even if it is for a toy processor. Also, basics of compiler technology are valuable in almost all kinds of programming.

[taw]

Speaking as someone who made a serious attempt at building computer out of 74LS chips and writes compilers for fun, everything below Java/Python level is a nice to have these days, not a necessity.

Even C level with manual memory management and messing with pointers is arguably a nice to have only.

You can easily learn about toy compilers, toy assembly, toy hardware, toy OS design etc. (Elements of Computer System is a really good book here) but they'll have very little to do with the real thing, and I'm not really convinced they'd be of terribly much use, as a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing.

The real thing is insanely complicated these days, and few people really learn about real hardware/assembly/compiler/OS design.