You know, when I started learning how to program, it was a piece of cake! You’d turn on the computer and be greeted by a nice little “Ready” prompt. You’d start typing in some code (BASIC), and eventually, you’d type run, hit Enter, and watch whatever it was you put in there spit back something (my first program was a man drawn with various keyboard characters doing jumping jacks). You might save that program to a cassette – yes, kids, a cassette! – and hand it to your friends if you wanted to share.
But that was it. It was just that easy. Nowadays, though, the story is very different. Writing even a trivial application now involves layers upon layers of abstractions and complexities that you must mix together, like baking the world’s most complicated cake, hoping it all works in the end. Then, should you want to distribute the technological terror you’ve constructed (sorry, Aldearan), you’ve got even more challenges to overcome.
Description:
You know, when I started learning how to program, it was a piece of cake! You’d turn on the computer and be greeted by a nice little “Ready” prompt. You’d start typing in some code (BASIC), and eventually, you’d type run, hit Enter, and watch whatever it was you put in there spit back something (my first program was a man drawn with various keyboard characters doing jumping jacks). You might save that program to a cassette – yes, kids, a cassette! – and hand it to your friends if you wanted to share.
But that was it. It was just that easy. Nowadays, though, the story is very different. Writing even a trivial application now involves layers upon layers of abstractions and complexities that you must mix together, like baking the world’s most complicated cake, hoping it all works in the end. Then, should you want to distribute the technological terror you’ve constructed (sorry, Aldearan), you’ve got even more challenges to overcome.