[vcf-midatlantic] OT: people don't understand computers anymore

[Dean Notarnicola]

Bill, completely agreed. The depressing result is that, without underlying
knowledge of the systems they are programming, these "software
engineers" have no idea how to troubleshoot an issue beyond their code, or
how to code efficiently. This is not an entirely new phenomenon.  I knew
plenty of Cobol programmers back in the day who knew practically zero about
how or why the underlying systems worked. The best programmers I have known
also had a very good understanding of the hardware and communication
channels.

On Tue, Jun 7, 2016 at 2:03 PM, Bill Sudbrink via vcf-midatlantic <
vcf-midatlantic at lists.vintagecomputerfederation.org> wrote:

> Neil Cherry wrote:
> > I'm a bit old school, can't quite understand how
> > those in computers can't understand the underlying
> > principles of the computer (hardware and software).
> > But along those same lines we're abstracting so
> > much of this that we don't need to understand it
> > that well.
>
> It's a bit astonishing to me too.  We get job candidates
> with CS degrees from reputable universities who don't
> know what a register is, can't explain how basic sorts
> work or why you would even want to know.  In my opinion,
> the most evil phrase to come out of a software engineer's
> mouth is "I don't want to have to think about...".  Yup,
> it's all abstracted away.  You get a "container class"
> with "iterators" and "find" methods and you're all set.
> Not fast enough?  Throw more hardware at it.
>
> This is raising my blood pressure... gotta stop.
>
> Bill S.
>
>
>
>