• dual_sport_dork 🐧🗡️
    link
    fedilink
    English
    913 months ago

    I can:

    • Accomplish damn near anything from a command line
    • Write machine code
    • Remember a fairly broad swath of special character altcodes without looking them up
    • Disassemble damn near any computer or other machine, and stand a good chance of putting it back together

    But also:

    • Use modern programming languages, including object oriented paradigms
    • Actually read what is on my screen and comprehend it, including error messages
    • Understand and operate any arbitrary interface without having to have it explained to me by rote

    Behold my mixture of skills, and tremble.

    • @TheEntity@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      323 months ago

      Can you summarize this in a vertical video? I stopped reading after the third word, I’m here for memes, not to read a damned book!

      • IninewCrow
        link
        fedilink
        English
        23 months ago

        … and have a dance video playing with music and flashing lights with the text over it … but not too much text because I can’t read that well

      • Harold
        link
        fedilink
        English
        123 months ago

        You just made me realize the Zoomers are actually much closer to making Warhammer 40k a reality. IT engineers are like Tech Priests to these Zoomers.

        • @AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          23 months ago

          01010100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01001111 01101101 01101110 01101001 01110011 01101001 01100001 01101000 00100000 01100100 01100101 01110011 01101001 01110010 01100101 01110011 00100000 01101101 01101111 01110010 01100101 00100000 01110100 01101111 01100001 01110011 01110100 01100101 01110010 01110011 00100001

        • partial_accumen
          link
          fedilink
          23 months ago

          I don’t know much of Warhammer lore, so I had to look up tech priests:

          "No longer the master of its creations, the Cult Mechanicus is enslaved to the past. It maintains the glories of yesteryear with rite, dogma and edict instead of true discernment and comprehension. For instance, even the theoretically simple process of activating a vehicle’s engine is preceded by the application of ritual oils, the burning of sacred resins and the chanting of long and complex hymns. "

          Its clear to me the author of this block of text was having trouble starting his vehicle’s engine, and was pissed off when he/she was asked to put in a ticket before help would be rendered to the him/her.

          • @Genius@lemmy.zip
            link
            fedilink
            13 months ago

            he/she

            What’s this nonsense? Why don’t you just say “they” like a normal person?

        • @mitchty@lemmy.sdf.org
          link
          fedilink
          13 months ago

          If you’ve never read it Vernon Vinge a fire upon the deep had a type of programmers in the future known as programmer archaeologists. The tldr is nobody wrote new code just dug up old code and bolted it together. I used to think that was silly, after llms lately and dealing with interns I no longer think of it as fiction.

          • I’ve always viewed programmer archaeology is just trying to understand your old code or the team you are working withs old code and also trying to understand the why it was done this way.

            I think AI coding is a programmer archeologist based on your definition, and I think I may start using that now.

            • @mitchty@lemmy.sdf.org
              link
              fedilink
              115 days ago

              I mean it’s kinda both, I just thought the idea a bit preposterous but as time goes on that book gets closer to reality.

    • Chris
      link
      fedilink
      43 months ago

      Why would you write machine code outside of uni! Assembly exists for a reason?

    • @otacon239@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      33 months ago

      The day I started learning Regex was the day I felt like I was really learning computers. I went from 2 hour tasks to 15 minutes.

      I doubt you’d even be able to reasonably explain what they are let alone how they work to the average person outside the Millennial generation.

      I fear AI data processing will replace much of the Regex skill set. Why learn Regex when the computer just does it for you… 🙄

      • @mearce@programming.dev
        link
        fedilink
        23 months ago

        I agree that regex is an important thing to learn. Not sure any old LLM would do a very good job, and I hope that no tool replaces people actually learning how to write regex.

        I’m not sure what you mean about the average person outside the millennial generation not understanding them, though. Maybe I’m mistaken, but I don’t think the ‘average’ person in any generation knows what regex is. Unless there is some reason the average millennial was actually exposed to them and forced to understand them?

        As for being doubtful that anyone could understand them aside from a millennial, I assume you’re being hyperbolic? Sort of sounds like “Kids these days can never learn what I learned!” (I’m teasing).

        Anyway I’m in agreement with you. This thread did remind me of a pretty neat project that, while still requiring domain knowledge, could save some time and be a good learning tool without being as fallible of a crutch as an LLM.

        Have not tried it, and am not an experienced developer, so I am curious to your thoughts/criticisms: https://github.com/pemistahl/grex

      • @PolarisFx@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        link
        fedilink
        13 months ago

        Depends, my browser has mostly taken over as my pdf viewer and I think it lacks the functionality but if I were to install a cracked copy of Acrobat Pro or PhantomPDF then that’s like a 2 click operation.

  • ssillyssadass
    link
    fedilink
    833 months ago

    Computers have been dumbed down and simplified for the masses. When I was a kid a computer did not cooperate until you raised your voice.

    • @IrateAnteater@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      503 months ago

      I do industrial programming. Everything is so far behind that yelling at the “computers” does nothing. Physical violence is just about the only thing they respect.

    • @mic_check_one_two@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      link
      fedilink
      English
      63 months ago

      Yeah, newer generations have been raised on tech that “just worked” consistently. They never had to do any deep troubleshooting, because they never encountered any major issues. They grew up in a world where the hard problems were already figured out, so they were insulated from a lot of the issues that allowed millennials to learn.

      They never got a BSOD from a faulty USB driver. They never had to reinstall an OS after using Limewire to download “Linkin_Park-Numb.mp3.exe” on the family computer. Or hell, even if they did get tricked by a malicious download, the computer’s anti-virus automatically killed it before they were even able to open it. They never had to manually install OS updates. They never had to figure out how to get their sound card working with a new game. They never had to manually configure their network settings.

      All of these things were chances for millennials to learn. But since the younger generations never encountered any issues, they never had to figure their own shit out.

      • @merc@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        33 months ago

        It’s not so much that the tech just worked. Often it doesn’t work. The difference is that when it doesn’t work it’s not user-serviceable. Up until maybe 2010 or so, when things broke there was often something a user could do to fix them. But, especially with the introduction of locked-down mobile phone OSes, that’s not true anymore. Now it’s just “wait for an update”.

      • @Zeddex@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        English
        13 months ago

        Or reinstall the OS on the family computer because one of your dumbass siblings downloaded a sUpeR cOoL song from one of their friends on MSN Messenger.

    • @samus12345@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      43 months ago

      It was always a struggle to get the damn thing to do what you wanted it to. It turned out to be a good thing long term.

      • M137
        link
        fedilink
        23 months ago

        Even as a teenager (didn’t have a computer before that) I had infinite patience with computers, you can fix/change/make anything with enough time, nothing will be better if you get mad and ignore reading and making sure you understand what’s happening. Seeing how young people handle tech now is fucking depressing, they just click past everything without reading, get mad and rage quit after 30 seconds of something not working and think anything that’s more than two clicks/taps is too complicated.

  • WolfmanEightySix
    link
    fedilink
    English
    283 months ago

    Are they the same generation whose parents said “they’re really good with computers …they go on the iPad all the time”?

  • @TommySoda@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    193 months ago

    We got a new kid around 19 working at our office for processing data and I hate how true this is. The amount of times I’ve had to say “No, you have to double click to open folders” is entirely too many. Either that or “You have to actually right click on the icon you want to copy you can’t just click anywhere on the screen.”

    • @krashmo@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      53 months ago

      Fuck me I’m not ready for that. You expect it from the old people but I might have to leave the room if a young person asked me something like that.

      • @Thwompthwomp@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        23 months ago

        I teach undergrads, and every year basic computer skills get worse and worse. I guess it’s not entirely their fault, but things like just asking them to save a file to their computer is insanely difficult. Lots of universities are starting to get task forces to figure out how to teach (or where to teach rather) basic digital skills, it it’s all going to hit the workforce really soon en masse.

    • @AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      3
      edit-2
      3 months ago

      The amount of times I’ve had to say “No, you have to double click to open folders”

      That’s a real problem when you’re used to Kde and have to use a windows machine.

      (Why is this damn thing so slow ? Oooh, right, double click)

      • dual_sport_dork 🐧🗡️
        link
        fedilink
        English
        13 months ago

        You can absolutely configure Windows to open folders – and all other shortcuts – with a single click, and IIRC one of the knocks against Windows ME was that this was the default option. And it was godawful, along with the “click” noise it made on navigation. (I think it was WinME. I’ve probably suppressed the memory, and rightly so.)

        But the long and short of it is if you want consistency between your UI’s in that regard you can indeed have it.

        • @AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          03 months ago

          I think I tried it years ago. But it didn’t really work with the windows ui for some reason. Nowadays I don’t use it often enough to bother personalising it.

        • @AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          2
          edit-2
          3 months ago

          It is in the latest versions but it’s very recent. The default has always been single click. They changed it because of windows users.

  • @samus12345@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    13
    edit-2
    3 months ago

    There are TWO generations between Boomers and Zoomers.

    It’s funny how Bs and Zs kind of horseshoe into being ignorant about how computers work. Boomers never had them growing up, while Zoomers were born with phones in their hands using corporate apps and never learned how computers actually work. Those of us in between had to learn how they worked to use them.

  • @tantalizer@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    93 months ago

    The amount of my students that wrote the whole email in the subject line is crazy. At first I thought it was a mistake or something. But there are sooo many…

    They also don’t know what a file browser/explorer is. As soon as the download notification is gone, the file doesn’t exist anymore.

    Giving files proper names? Unheard of!

  • @mcforest@feddit.org
    link
    fedilink
    73 months ago

    I actually thought I am part of this blessed generation that can use a computer. But rotating a PDF? That beats me.

    • missingno
      link
      fedilink
      173 months ago

      The real skillset isn’t necessarily knowing how to do these things off tbe top of your head, but knowing how to look them up.

      Perhaps the biggest obstacle for the next generation is how thoroughly Google has enshittified.

      • YaksDC
        link
        fedilink
        23 months ago

        Cobbling together four different online tutorials about a vague idea you think the damn program should do is the original “vibe programming”. I am looking at you Power Automate.

      • @JoShmoe@ani.social
        link
        fedilink
        English
        13 months ago

        Are you joking right now? I tried opening a pdf with Libre Draw recently but it didn’t work.

        • @Chee_Koala@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          2
          edit-2
          3 months ago

          No sir or madame, I actually verified by hand before posting that exact comment because while I did recently use it to edit the contents of a pdf (increase contrast on hiking map for BW print), I haven’t that often and thus I wanted to find the rotate button myself to make sure I was giving legitimate advice :)

      • @Psythik@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        23 months ago

        It’s good for sending documents you don’t want to be tampered with because most people don’t know how to edit a PDF.

        • @FrChazzz@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          English
          13 months ago

          This. I care about graphic design and aesthetics. So when I send a document to a group for review, I’m not taking the risk of giving them something they could mess with.

          • @Trihilis@ani.social
            link
            fedilink
            English
            13 months ago

            Pdf will always look the same though. A doc/docx file can look wildly different depending on the editor you are using.

      • @Thwompthwomp@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        13 months ago

        Pointless?? Really? We should have just stuck with postscript? I’m pretty happy with pdf for almost anything as there’s a good chance it’ll render how whoever sent it to me was seeing it. What would you suggest/do different?

    • TurboWafflz
      link
      fedilink
      23 months ago

      Sounds like something imagemagick could do so that would be my first strategy to try

  • Hellfire103
    link
    fedilink
    English
    63 months ago

    For fuck’s sake, give us 2005-2007 kids a microgeneration. We’re like late zillennials.

      • @257m@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        13 months ago

        As a 2007 kid I don’t many of my peers actually are but we are pretty different than post 2007 kids. I still grew up with satellite tv for the most part.

      • Hellfire103
        link
        fedilink
        English
        13 months ago

        Yeah, but I technically fall outside of the zillennial microgen. We’re right in the middle of Gen Z, and yet we barely fit the stereotype.

  • Chloé 🥕
    link
    fedilink
    53 months ago

    in today’s edition of “why are the kids I raised so damn incompetent?”

    i long for a day where people understand that it’s not the ipad kid’s fault they were given a tablet at age 2

    • @Default_Defect@midwest.social
      link
      fedilink
      English
      13 months ago

      No one taught me how to use a computer, I figured it out as I went. I had to tell my 25 year old brother that theres more than one USB port on the back of his computer because he only saw the one in the front and asked me where he plugs in the keyboard and mouse.

      Part of the issue for a lot of the older and younger crowd is “Well, it’s not immediately obvious, so therefore its impossible and now I’m mad at you for it.”

    • @chatokun@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      link
      fedilink
      13 months ago

      That’s… part of it, but part of it is just ease of use. In growing up, I had to figure out issues with my computer,and getting games etc working took some work to do. I build a gaming PC for my nephew(under 10, but games a lot mobile and with consoles) and he played a few games on it, but then my sister (a gamer herself) said he couldn’t really get used to keyboard over controller (at which point I reminded her she could just get him a PC controller or use one of the console ones that also work on PC).

      He just seems to prefer to use things that are already intuitive, and since my childhood things have gotten much better in that regard for consoles and mobile stuff. You can definitely do it on PC as well, but it often means more accessories, sometimes figuring out issues . I got another sister of mine a controller for pc and it took a bit of effort getting it properly synced for the game she wanted to play. It would show up properly in the OS, but then the game he issues, so we had to switch through modes and such, and sometimes even though one mode may work an update or something may break it.

      I like using controllers for some games, and WASD for others, but even though IT is my job and I’m good at fixing things, some games have weird issues with some controllers, especially if they have mode options. All that extra fixing and finding the right settings is just frustrating for some, and with easy to use alternatives they may not bother to learn. I had no choice, just SNES and pc while growing up.

  • @shads@lemy.lol
    link
    fedilink
    English
    43 months ago

    OK so I have a pet theory about this. I grew up in a period when computing involved friction and lack of ready resources to ease that friction. Solving problems involved actual research, in the research process more and more details of how computers operate were exposed to me. I had the time and focus to learn and the motivation to stick at it when it was difficult. I then did something horrible to almost everyone who asked me for help, I removed that friction.

    With the noblest of intentions I prevented everyone around me from experiencing that friction, I made it easy. Consequently I caused those people around me to miss out on those basics I struggled with. I uncovered the arcane lore of endianess so everyone around me who wasn’t already an adept would be spared. I plumbed the mysteries of the parallel port so that others could use a printer with only mild mystical invocations. I immersed myself in SCSI termination so that my friends and family might partake of IDE (retroactively named PATA) in peace.

    I came from an era of computing where these things mattered (at least to some degree) and they moulded me and shaped how I use a computer to this day. My brothers will always be dependent on myself and my ilk to act as guides and so much of what I know is functionally useless today so a neophyte could not follow the twisted path I did.

    I was blessed as well to come of age in a time when a computer was a comprehensible assemblage of parts, when I could identify at an IC level the components of it. I feel like that is what is missing in the modern incarnation of technology. I also worry this is where we stagnate, the field is too large for anyone to compass it entirely and we splinter in to specialisations.

    However this is also a sign that technology has come of age. I am certain, absolutely positive, that if I was to pick an arbitary topic, say music, I would seem as illiterate and helpless as the Zoomers we are bemoaning as mere consumers of Tech. I can enjoy a piece of music, I can even take a rough stab at the rusiments of how it is made. Ask me to explain the nomenclature of a time signature on sheet music and I will look the dunce before I finish the first sentence.

    So maybe we should give them a break and realise that for a lot of them, It… Just… Isn’t… Important…

    They will learn this stuff if and when they need to. Otherwise “magic box does things when I perform this ritual” is enough for them to function in their world, the same as “Car starts when I turn this key” is enough for me to function in mine.

    Holy crap, I wrote this on my phone, what is wrong with me?

    • Prehensile_cloaca
      link
      fedilink
      English
      13 months ago

      Nah, no breaks. Their ignorance is the foundation upon which further learning will stumble.

      Is it their fault? No. But neither has it been Millennials’ fault for inheriting a vast slew of fuckery dropped at our feet since the late 90s.

      Baby Boomers ARE the culprits in most cases, but they’ll never accept their roles in destroying the greatest and broadest reaching wealth engine in the modern world.

    • @the_q@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      13 months ago

      Fun read, but the zinger of “it… Just… Isn’t… Important” really damages your argument.

      The difference in knowing how our technological systems work versus just using them is how you wind up in a world where capitalist rule, intelligence dwindles and choice is stolen. We’re seeing these effects in real time. And it’s just not technology; take the electoral system here in the US. It stopped being about the functions of our government and became flag waving and baby kissing. Now our tax dollars kill children, the rich are all but unstoppable and we’re at each other’s throats all because we, collectively, let the systems work without understanding how and why.

      Tech today being a glass and aluminum block feeds our lust, insecurity, inequality, comparison etc all in an effort to generate wealth and further divide, all by design. Didn’t you think it’s very important to know that?

      • @257m@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        13 months ago

        As a zoomer (17) I kind of agree but I really don’t think its that deep although big tech does seem to profit off people’s incompetence. Yes kids my age know very little about the computers they use. Hell most kids don’t even seem to know where their files are or how file paths work. I recently in Comp Sci class had a kid look at me confused when I mentioned the folder he was looking for was in his home directory. The dumbing down of Tech is definitely a culprit. Not always even in ways that the tech easier to use. Finder on MacOS outright hides things from you on purpose like file paths and being able to access arbitrary folder on your system. There are a considerable amount of features locked away in the settings menu where the vast majority of people will never even look. I highly think all of this is malicious as it severely degrades user experience and sets them to fail in the long run. Don’t even get me started on the whole random files will end up in ICloud/Onedrive and there is nothing you can do about it.

  • @Vespair@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    43 months ago

    I think Zoomers need a generational divide in their generation, tbh. In my experience, older Zoomers are intelligent, capable, motivated, and largely leftist. For some unknown reason though, younger Zoomers are ignorant, prudish, too easily contented, and weirdly conservative. I have yet to understand what happened to cause the divide, and I can’t point to any stats or evidence to support this belief, but anecdotally I have noticed this trend within my own life and spheres of influence.

    • @Doctor_Satan@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      2
      edit-2
      3 months ago

      For some unknown reason though, younger Zoomers are ignorant, prudish, too easily contented, and weirdly conservative. I have yet to understand what happened to cause the divide,

      The online manosphere/tradtube spent the past 10-15 years raising these kids while their parents fucked off. That’s what happened. These are the kids who made people like Andrew Tate famous, and made Joe Rogan way more relevant than he has any right to be. It’s a great lesson in why people need to pay more attention to the media that their children consume.

      • @kameecoding@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        1
        edit-2
        3 months ago

        That, and it’s unsurprisingly connect to the piewdiepie fascist pipeline thing, Helldivers popular as fuck, Warhammer 40K having a renessaince, I see plenty of shorts about how boys want to die a heroic death, that’s a fucking staple of fascism

        This is such a good video on this stuff, how young kids get sucked into fascism layer by layer https://youtu.be/pnmRYRRDbuw

        https://youtu.be/P55t6eryY3g

      • @Vespair@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        1
        edit-2
        3 months ago

        I agree with this, but what made this different then our generation or early zoomers? I was raised online as a house with an internet-connected home PC in the early-to-mid 90s with two parents who worked until night; there were grifters and proto-manosphere groups then and I’m sure moreso for the early zoomers, so I have to assume there was either some change in the methodology behind the delivery in these messages or, more likely, some change in the parental oversight, but I can’t identify exactly when or what

        • @SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca
          link
          fedilink
          13 months ago

          Yeah but there wasn’t an algorithm picking out all of that shit and giving us a constant stream of 100% pure troll heroin.

          Seeing one post in fifty telling you garbage puts it into the context of “that guy is saying some weird shit”. Seeing only garbage in your feed makes it seem normal and those opposed to it are the weirdos.

        • @kugel7c@feddit.org
          link
          fedilink
          Deutsch
          13 months ago

          I think perhaps in tandem with education - parental or institutional - getting even worse/changing from what you or I might be used to. The shift from search to algorithm as the primary way to interact with the Internet is also a significant factor, the Internet might’ve changed significantly before I was really there, but it certainly changed 2008-2016 mostly in that shift from search to platform/algorithm.

          And early zoomers might’ve started their online existence just around the start of that transition while late zoomers, basically only know the Plattform/App/Algorithm world we have today.

          If you were to be really cynical about it : The powers at be started losing the control over the messaging specifically to the online world, and managed to grapple it back starting in the mid 2000s just as the size/power of the space became significant. Zoomers might be here or there depending on how and when their first online experiences played out.

          I’m just on the very earliest of zoomers, and my cohort largely got hit with 2008 as we were just starting to grapple with politics, and with 2016 right around graduating high school. For me Search was the Internet starting point, Wiki, YT and forums all in service to my curiosity and also there for my entertainment/ placating.

          perhaps for someone a bit later it’s all just entertainment, no problem solving, no strange sub subculture, just whatever you desire to see or listen to or read imidiately there, without you even needing to think about it, so accurately getting your attention that it’s perhaps more attractive than thinking, or making a decision.

          The bad habit is there for me too, I think some younger people might not be able to even recognize it as such, maybe for them that’s just how the world works.

        • @locahosr443@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          1
          edit-2
          3 months ago

          Maybe the younger ones still elastic brains were just too vulnerable

          E: Usenet, irc, forums etc were like an early training ground hardening us against the purveyors of bullshit. When bullshit became the business of billionaire corporations online we were ready for it. They never had a chance…

    • Camelbeard
      link
      fedilink
      13 months ago

      Even with millennials (1981 to 1996) there is a big difference when you where born.

      If you are an early millennial you grew up with MS-DOS, so you had to learn the terminal to get anything done. You probably had your first smartphone after you where 25.

      If you are a late millennial you grew up with Windows XP and probably had a smartphone as a teen.

      • @Vespair@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        13 months ago

        That has not been my experience, no. I am speaking younger adults, not teenagers; I don’t really have many interactions with teenagers or children these days so I don’t have enough experience with alphas to have really any sort of opinion on them. As I understand it, Gen A starts after 2010, so any adult today would still be a Zoomer. Granted of course that “generations” are a loosely-defined concept so the years they are defined as may vary, but it is my understanding that the typical understanding of Zoomer goes as far as 2010 at least.

  • @Underwaterbob@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    33 months ago

    It only relatively recently occurred to me that the vast majority of people use the Internet either solely or mostly with a mobile phone. It blew my mind since I grew up with PCs and modems and the Internet is so much better on a large screen that’s not half full of ads.

    • @samus12345@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      33 months ago

      Yeah, I hate using the internet via a phone and only do it when there’s no other option available. It severely limits what you can do, which of course is perfect for the 5 or so corporations that run most of the internet.

    • @Putzak@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      23 months ago

      It doesn’t have to be full of ads on mobile either, just use Firefox or a fork (ironfox is great) and add ublock origin as a start.

      • @anythingdull@infosec.pub
        link
        fedilink
        English
        13 months ago

        This is true for Android, but sadly not so for iOS. All browsers on iOS use Safari’s engine WebKit under the hood, yet only Safari can have extensions. There is no uBlock on Safari, either. We have alternatives though, like AdBlock Pro and similar

    • @Bosht@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      23 months ago

      My wife is similarly aged than me. I was raised around computers and she was not. It’s a chore to get her to actually send me a URL or tell me where she is so I can actually get a full browser experience. I’ve slowly been converting her over and trying to show her the benefits of browsing online.