To quote someone I know
"I wouldn't trust them to program my video recorder."
This is interesting on multiple levels
1. It shows that they see there is a problem and the scale of it.
2. They don't realise that video recorders haven't existed for over a decade
3. There is nothing happening to prevent it happening again tomorrow.
I look back at 1MHz CPU's and the amazing things that were done on them by clever coding - BBC Micro Elite as a good example or people that understand bit shifting rather than complex multiplications. Then I look at modern coding that requires massive containers with a bunch of frameworks, GB of RAM to do simple things because the developers don't understand anything underneath the framework they are working in, but "its how things are done now". I bet that 95% of those developers can't explain what that actually means or why, even at one level down in the platform stack. How many could interpret a stack dump or patch the binary directly ?.
There should be a qualification that shows that people understand the hardware and software stack and how to best use it to get the best outcome - even in the days of cloud.
I wonder what would happen if modern "developers" were put on 1970's / 1980's (or even 1990's) systems and told to write a stock control application (or a spaceship flight control program). You only have 1MHz of CPU, 128K or RAM and a 20Mb hard disk. Users are connected via RS232 terminals of a variety of types and in a variety of locations and you can't claim FrAgile development methodologies and you can't access the Internet to research things. The space spec would be far lower.
Who were the real programmers and who were the apes that claim to write the works of Shakespeare ?
Biting the hand that feeds IT
