Re:Computers Aren't Fun Anymore (2020)
by jjav on Wednesday February 17, 2021 @06:27PM
(#26173270)
I'd say computers can be as fun as they ever were. When I get a rare moment of free time to hack on my personal projects, low level CLI utilities generally, that's as fun as it was hacking on the same type of tools in the 80s.
But the computer industry as a profession, certainly way less fun. In the 90s Silicon Valley was places like Sun, SGI, HP, Cisco; building custom hardware and software. One got to work on compilers, kernels, server code and network stacks and all kinds of projects where correctness and performance mattered. Rewarding fun work.
Today Silicon Valley is Google (ads), FB (ads), NFLX (movies), Apple (cool, actual hardware and software product, but IMO too tightly walled-garden to be any fun).
Now, of course, yes there are people still working on hard problems and low level systems but those jobs are few and far between, have no recognition anymore and don't pay well. To follow a path of career progress, it's just adware or dumb webapps.
But the computer industry as a profession, certainly way less fun. In the 90s Silicon Valley was places like Sun, SGI, HP, Cisco; building custom hardware and software. One got to work on compilers, kernels, server code and network stacks and all kinds of projects where correctness and performance mattered. Rewarding fun work.
Today Silicon Valley is Google (ads), FB (ads), NFLX (movies), Apple (cool, actual hardware and software product, but IMO too tightly walled-garden to be any fun).
Now, of course, yes there are people still working on hard problems and low level systems but those jobs are few and far between, have no recognition anymore and don't pay well. To follow a path of career progress, it's just adware or dumb webapps.