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I have a theory (if you would call it that!) It seems to me that today, modern computers have a lot of "distractions" and quite useless features for people learning how to program. Personally, I learnt how to write code on my BBC microcomputer with 32K RAM, as Im sure many did on similar machines.
1) Learning computer science, and how to program, nowadays can be done sufficiently well on an old 1980s machine and the resulting trained person might actually be better than if they used modern day technology. (It doesnt strike me that modern programmers/computer scientists are any better than those trained decades ago.)
2) Even though the number of computer users has increased, actually modern computing equiptment has lowered the % of users who become "experts". (Back in the 80s, without knowledge of how to use the CLI the machine would be unworkable, and programming on those machines was often central with few other things to do, whereas now the many distractions mean that programming is not seen as fun/useful. In addition, with modern GUIs its easy for a "programmer" to hide behind creating pointless visual effects, with little substance behind.)
What do other people think?
Nick
P.s. I think thats my major issue with Windows - it is made so simple to use (and even shipped without a "decent" programming language) that it doesnt require any learning or expertese on the part of the computer user. A 10+ Windows user can probably achieve similar results in a similar time frame to a 1 year Windows user, and in the process they really dont gain any knowledge of how the machine works.
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