Massive Culture Shift

Most of us beyond the age of 38 are fully aware of our place in the grand scheme of current “history”.  Actually, I should qualify that as “social order”.  We know we’re not “kids” anymore, not even “young adults”.  Yet, we’re not “aged” or “elderly” either.  We’re sort of in a purgatory realm.  The significance of this varies, I’m sure, with respect to (a) geography, (b) income status, (c) racial/ethnic demographic and equally significant: (d) career status.  Ok, (e) All of the above, is allowed also.

Those of us in the above-mentioned demographic (econographic?) who happen to earn a living in the world of software technology know this all too well.  We can see and experience (sometimes painfully) tangible examples of the gradual age shifting of the labor pool.  That has a direct, yet often overlooked, subtle impact on the gradual shift of technology and technology application in the real world.

Some are obvious: programming languages, programming techniques, tools, changes in how old pieces are combined in new ways to do new things.  Some of this is apparent towards the end of this eWeek interview with Google’s Adam Bosworth.  The (lack of) show of hands for those in the audience that knew what “Lotus” was, clearly delineates the emerging segment of younger talent.  The frightening realization we (my econographic) group is facing now is: holy shit! we’re not the “in” crowd of technology anymore!  We’re just hanging on as long as we can until we have to let go and hopefully fall onto a soft Social Security or retirement safety net.   Like that will really happen to most of us (oops, did I just say that out loud?)

Let’s face it: we need to say out loud, to ourselves… “someday, maybe sooner than we’d like, apps won’t be written in C++, C#, Java, VB.NET, Perl, Python, PHP or even Ruby”. There will be a time when those things are looked upon the same way we look upon a 1953 Mercury sedan: It’s a classic, but thank GOD I don’t have to taxi my kids around to school in it.  Sci-Fi movies have predicted far-fetched things for years, but this is not Sci-Fi, this is speculative predictive probability at its best.  Like our grandfathers pontificated to us (as we moaned for salvation), we too shall bestow painful reminiscent stories upon our grandchildren.

“We used to *write* programs in my day.  None of this talking or hand gesture crap.  None of this brainwave transmission crap you kids have now.  No sir.  We had to *work* and we *earned* our income back then…”  “Oh yeah, I had to write code for ten miles to school, EACH WAY, and code UPHILL both ways!”

zzzzzzzzzzzz…