caseyamcl

For sure!

I had similar anxieties about cognitive issues after brain surgery, subsequent radiation, and chemotherapy.

I’m currently half way through treatment, and while it’s not fun, it hasn’t affected my ability to do my job much.

...and that’s after opening up my skull, ripping out part of my brain, and subsequently zapping and poisoning it!

I’ve found that chemo is cyclical in the sense that you’ll feel great some days and awful other days. Be kind to yourself, and take frequent breaks; you’re doing great!

Seconded re ZZT. I remember learning HTML so that I could build my first website, which was a ZZT fan website (there were more). That game literally launched my career as a programmer.

My brother and I would sit at the computer for hours building elaborate 8-bit worlds fueled mainly by our imaginations.

When I was 8 years old, I remember participating in a contest for which Tim Sweeney wrote me a personal letter. I’ve saved the letter. Here’s the link if you’re interested: https://www.dropbox.com/s/12o0qgg2y1uzd30/1990-91%20album%20...

Thanks, Tim! It’s not every CEO who goes out of his way to encourage a kid. You inspired me.

I’m going to chime in here and say that I stayed with PHP through the roughest years.

I’ve only seen positive changes in the time since then.

I’ve made a good living from writing code and I don’t see any reason that has to change.

To frame the situation as 'cars vs gadgets' is missing the bigger picture, and completely ignoring some fundamental reasons for the shift away from car culture.

We are a generation of people who grew up in car world. Car world is a boring, homogenous, safe, segregated, sterile, humanless place. In car world, serendipitous engagement with one's community is impossible. In car world, engagement with other humans is always a car drive away. In car world, we spend 20% of our after-tax income just to move around our environment. In car world, every place is the same as every other place--Target, Starbucks, gad stations, same strip malls, same subdivisions..

We grew up watching 'Friends' and 'Seinfeld' on tv. When we have travelled, we've seen places that seemed more interesting, more human, more exciting than the nowhere-vile isolating housing divisions we spent out childhood in. And we want to go to those places, or create them in our own towns.

And that's why I don't care about whatever car you're trying to sell me--gadget dock or not. It doesn't deliver on its promise of "freedom". It perpetuates the banality that we grew up in.

I certainly don't detest the "freedom to live where you want." It's a lack of freedom that I detest. In my city (and most others), it is highly impractical or impossible to go anywhere without a car. There is no freedom I'm choosing how to transport yourself; you drive or you don't go.

My car is kind of a form of taxation in that regard; you can't get around safely without it. There are few sidewalks or bike facilities, so citizens must own a car whether they want to (or can afford to) or not.

Isn't the freedom to choose how to get around as important to you as the freedom to choose where to live?

There is a definite argument to made for putting in-place more rigorous standards for developer education. My wife is a nurse, and there are very strict standards for getting a nursing license and graduating with a BSN degree. After all, she deals with human lives, and mistakes could be deadly. I believe such systems help ensure consistent behavior, and I agree that such a thing might be useful in certain areas of the developer world.

However, we have to be careful, because a big part of software development involves inspiration and creative work. If people aren't interested and encouraged to pursue development as a hobby or career path, where will the masters of the future come from? Think of the amateur, but not so great, photographer hobbyist who grows up to become a legend in their field.

I also have to disagree with Uncle Bob on the use of the term "hordes" to describe "many people interested in a craft". The negative connotation is indicative of the kind of snobbery that people as the top of their field may be entitled to, but certainly doesn't win people over when trying to make a convincing argument. It smacks of somebody looking down from the Ivory Tower of Enlightenment and sneering at the ignorance of the perceived mobs below...