[svlug] Kids these days: was Who and What?

[Steve Litt]

On Mon, 25 May 2015 12:08:29 -0600
Mark - Syminet <mark at syminet.com> wrote:

> On May 24, 2015, at 9:44 AM, Steve Litt <slitt at troubleshooters.com>
> wrote:
> 
> [...]
> 
> > OK, yeah, I'm kidding around, but my contention is that if you
> > weren't there and didn't know who was holding what, that blurred
> > picture could just as easily be Carl Wilson as anyone else in the
> > world.
> 
> 
> Apologies for derailing the thread, but all of this made me wonder
> about the fact that many of us from the "old days" of linux (nearly
> 25 years already? ouch!) - couple thoughts: 
> 
> 1) Does the human mind tend to remember things in a way that we find 
>     generally more favorable?  (as a mechanism to survive) - because
> it sure seemed more fun/reliable "back in the day".  
> 
> 2) I've noticed that many kids these days (e.g. high school
> graduates) appear to be miserably un-prepared for a world full of
> computers.  It's sad because I think we (by which I mean, OSS) must
> have failed them?  
> 
> Amazingly, these kids do not even know what a C:\ drive even is.
> Copy/Paste? Forget it.  Remember, people born in 1995 are 20 years
> old now.  Are we reaching a place where your grandkids call grandpa
> to fix your computer?  

ROFLMAO!

I think this group is self-selected to have a very different take on
this subject. Use me as an example...

Let's say, for the sake of argument, that I'm 65 and my kids are 22 (in
fact, I *am* 65 and my kids *are* 22). Yeah, I'm the guy who fixes
their laptops. Yeah, I'm the guy who installs and upgrades their
computers and fixes the network. Yeah, I even grudgingly fix their
Windows problems. But I'm not an ordinary Boomer. Ordinary Boomers don't
know what a C:\ drive is, a lot of them don't know how to copy and
paste, and if you say the word "Linux", they say "I'm not smart enough
for that!"

I doubt there are any ordinary Boomers on this list.

And there are plenty of Milleneals who can code circles around me.

If I had to say something about "Kids these days", it would be that
they prioritize (locked) "devices" over (completely maleable)
computers. Here's what I think led us to this point:

* The definition of "writing content" changed from slamming out 2K
  words/day of a book, or 200 lines/day of code for a program, to
  issuing tweets, issuing facebook likes, updating status, and changing
  the aesthetics of your Facebook page.

* Without the need to slam out huge verbiage, they don't need a
  fullsized, highly responsive keyboard.

* Like all previous generations in their 20's, on average, their
  eyesight is great, and they can actually do what they need to do on a
  4" by 5" "device".

* So they have no need to know about drives and directories, and little
  need to know about copy and paste, in a "click that button" world.

* So their definition of technical knowledge has morphed from knowing
  how to code or admin, to knowing which buttons to press and where to
  find them.


But the preceding bullet list describes only the Milleneals resembling
the average Boomer. Plenty of Milleneals use full sized keyboards to
slam out lots of code or prose. Jude Nelson
(http://www.cs.princeton.edu/~jcnelson/) is a 4th year grad student,
and unless he's taken time off or my math is wrong, that puts his age
at about 24. He's yanking every systemd dependency out of udev to make
his systemd-free vdev. I can't do that. Jude is only one of many
examples.

Rather than correlating it with age, I'd call what's happening today
"the victory of the dweebs with devices". In 1985 you needed some
serious smarts to operate a computer at all. Today, with interfaces
incorporating human ambiguities, the huge hoard of less logical
thinking people are increasingly determining the market.

SteveT

Steve Litt 
May 2015 featured book: Quit Joblessness: Start Your Own Business
http://www.troubleshooters.com/startbiz