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from the there-are-still-some-of-us-left dept.
Over at ACM Yegor Bugayenko writes:
In the 1970s, when Microsoft and Apple were founded, programming was an art only a limited group of dedicated enthusiasts actually knew how to perform properly. CPUs were rather slow, personal computers had a very limited amount of memory, and monitors were lo-res. To create something decent, a programmer had to fight against actual hardware limitations.
In order to win in this war, programmers had to be both trained and talented in computer science, a science that was at that time mostly about algorithms and data structures.
[...] Most programmers were calling themselves "hackers," even though in the early 1980s this word, according to Steven Levy's book Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution, "had acquired a specific and negative connotation." Since the 1990s, this label has become "a shibboleth that identifies one as a member of the tribe," as linguist Geoff Nunberg pointed out.
[...] it would appear that the skills required of professional and successful programmers are drastically different from the ones needed back in the 1990s. The profession now requires less mathematics and algorithms and instead emphasizes more skills under the umbrella term "sociotech." Susan Long illustrates in her book Socioanalytic Methods: Discovering the Hidden in Organizations and Social Systems that the term "sociotechnical systems" was coined by Eric Trist et al. in the World War II era based on their work with English coal miners at the Tavistock Institute in London. The term now seems more suitable to the new skills and techniques modern programmers need.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by fyngyrz on Saturday April 28 2018, @10:38PM
That's just straight-up nonsense.
Maintainability may, or may not, be present. That's down to how said programmer went about their work. But being a loner / genius doing this kind of work doesn't mean they went one way or another at all. It's completely a separate issue.
Knowing how to write clear, maintainable, well-documented code (and user instructions) are unique skills in and of themselves. Some who can code have one or both, some don't. Period.
The moment you try to gather everyone into the same basket, you're almost certain to have made a huge error. People are different. Programmers are different. Skillsets are different.
</rant>