Learning to program is getting harder

Re:Learning to program is getting harder by gricardo99 on Friday February 16, 2018 @04:08PM (#16396282)

I have not seen any age-correlation in what you describe. For sure there are "career" programmers who don't know much about computers beyond their narrow scope of expertise.

You're admittedly obsessed with computers, which presumably means you spend a lot of your free timing tinkering and learning. You've picked up a lot of very useful knowledge, but surely there's room in a profession for those who are not obsessed with their field? The programmer who doesn't know anything about a BIOS perhaps spends their free time bike riding.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Learning to program is getting harder by sametmax on Friday February 16, 2018 @04:48PM (#16396731)

Yes but computing is a very young field.

It's not like architecture or cooking.

Everything sucks. Most stuff breaks, are buggy, badly documented and poorly explained. Things gets obsolete fast.

If you are "just a programmer", you will be half productive and very dependent on others.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Learning to program is getting harder by namelost on Friday February 16, 2018 @06:34PM (#16397587)

Being a programmer without advanced computer skills is like being a paramedic who can't drive. Sure it's possible and there's probably some niche where such a person can fit in, but definitely career limiting.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Learning to program is getting harder by adrianN on Saturday February 17, 2018 @12:26AM (#16399220)

I know a couple of grey haired professional programmers who have only rudimentary "computer" skills. They're still decent programmers though.

[ Parent | on HN ]