![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png) oneplusme.livejournal.com |
Tue 2006-05-16 17:20 |
This is a thought that's bothered me on occasion in the past as well. I learned programming in much the same way as you (and, indeed, significantly from you...), so I'm used to the idea that it's possible to comprehend (to some extent) all the layers in a system in which you're working. But modern PC-class hardware and system software is getting so fantastically complicated that it simply isn't practical to start at (or near) the bottom of the heap.
I suppose what I'm trying to say is: what's going to happen when we of the 8-bit generation are sufficiently Old Farts that only a vanishingly small percentage of working programmers have ever had the opportunity to play at that low a level? I'm sure there'll always be a subset of god-like hackers who are willing and able to handle the complexity at the bottom, but what would the effect be of most programmers being fundamentally unaware of how their high-level actions are implemented? (And are we there already?) |
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