I see that too. In the 90s a lot of developers were self taught and were self motivated to solve problems. With recent hires I see a lot of people who probably did CS for a good career but don’t really care about the craft. If something doesn’t work exactly as it should they just give up.

Remember back in <good old days> when people were authentic and real and not opportunistic fakers?

Load up the resentful pioneer module, Billy.

I am not resentful. It's a pretty normal thing when a profession gets more professional and is considered highly paid. It attracts people who aren't naturally attracted to the job. From observation a lot of doctors aren't that enthusiastic about their profession either but do it for the reputation and money.

There is definitely a division between people who are attracted to the profession because they have an intrinsic interest and those looking for extrinsic rewards.

I bet asking what age someone started programming is as good an interview question as any other.

I would fail that interrogation. :-)

I'd fail that too. I didn't have the money to get a computer. But I am mechanical engineer and in my first job I quickly was the guy who wrote macros for our CAD system instead of doing designs with it. I never liked using the CAD system but I loved writing code for it. That would indicate a natural attraction to writing code.

I wasn't a developer in the 90s, but generally speaking, the legacy code that still exists from that era is absolute garbage.

Most of the code we are writing now will be garbage in 20 years too. Guaranteed. You do your best with the tools and knowledge you have at the moment. That's all you can do.

Not mine, maxxxxx, nope, my code is TIMELESS. ;-D

Can they be wholly blamed? Managers and other people who have more power than young developers want developers to be replaceable cogs.

"Can they be wholly blamed? Managers and other people who have more power than young developers want developers to be replaceable cogs."

I don't envy a lot of young guys whose first professional experience is to be micromanaged daily in scrum and JIRA.

I mostly agree. I see this is a self-fulfilling prophecy. When a unicorn with 20 years experience cannot be found I feel like companies settle on junior developers they don't have confidence in. Because of the low confidence the standard for exceptionalism is set very low. This is extremely problematic because it directly produces entitlement (unearned praise) in a generation already stereotyped 9perhaps falsely) as exceptionally entitled.

In a healthy environment organizations would hire junior developers into environments that are social inviting, but technically not at all friendly. Without challenges developers won't grow, so challenge the shit out of the juniors.