but I’m honestly not sure how niche that culture has become in eternal september.
Long gone, I am afraid.
It seems to me that greatest difference is that a few decades ago, the only people who studied computers were math nerds. Then at some moment, computers became a reliable way to make a great salary, and everyone started paying attention… but of course it takes a few years to learn programming (and more years until the school systems wake up and start teaching it), so the first generation of well paid programmers were the nerds who originally learned it for Platonic reasons.
The next generation of programmers, however, consists mostly of people who are there only for the money. Many of them do not even like programming, it’s just that they need to do something to pay their bills. And yeah, the nerds are there too, but now they are a minority, and their preferences are considered irrelevant.
Long gone, I am afraid.
It seems to me that greatest difference is that a few decades ago, the only people who studied computers were math nerds. Then at some moment, computers became a reliable way to make a great salary, and everyone started paying attention… but of course it takes a few years to learn programming (and more years until the school systems wake up and start teaching it), so the first generation of well paid programmers were the nerds who originally learned it for Platonic reasons.
The next generation of programmers, however, consists mostly of people who are there only for the money. Many of them do not even like programming, it’s just that they need to do something to pay their bills. And yeah, the nerds are there too, but now they are a minority, and their preferences are considered irrelevant.