> "That almost nobody has the skills these days to implement something like TP is something we could eventually come to regret – or, rather, our grandchildren could. Software development is becoming a semi-skilled industry, and I doubt that the rise of AI will entirely compensate for this."
I agree, but AI also there is hope!
For many years I've worried about the ever-growing depth of abstraction in computing. There are few alive now who actually understand all of the layers on abstraction involved in modern computing, and who can debug the truly strange edge case bugs and vulnerabilities introduced by the interoperation of these many complex layers.
For a time I imagined it to be an unsolvable problem, and that there would always be only a special class of neurodivergent hyper-specialists who still mostly had to work in large teams to even come close to understanding a stack in full. We're reaching the point where a single human lifespan just isn't enough to learn it all, even for those of us with what Dilbert called "The Knack". By the time you're proficient in all of it - you're dead.
Now there is a new kind of intelligence. One that CAN fit it all in a single mind, and one that will outlive us all and continue to learn long after our meat has gone bad.
As long as the AI's stay aligned, and we find ways to build them more efficiently there's a non-zero chance that they actually make it all better instead of worse. Genuinely long-term planning and the ability to TRULY grasp the full stack COULD actually happen. At least if we use these new systems in service of the greater good, and not just to play silly games on the stock market.
Man, I haven’t seen Turbo Pascal since high school. We were lucky enough to have a CompSci class taught by our Stats teacher.
He offered three courses. CompSci 1 used Turbo Pascal and Delphi. CompSci 2 used C++ and Java. CompSci 3 used Microsoft Turbo Assembly and a language of the student’s choice.
We had to write our code and save them to floppy discs for submission since the lab systems had DeepFreeze installed on Win95, so any local storage wouldn’t persist.
My first real programming project was creating a pong clone on DOS using Turbo Pascal, as a 12 year old, in the mid 90s. Many years later, when I was in the penultimate year of uni, I worked as a freelance Delphi programmer. I had no idea Pascal would help me buy my first car many years later.
As someone born after the release of TP 7, this was a fascinating read!
I wouldn’t necessarily have expected for Microsoft to make development (at least the “intended” way) for early not-just-DOS Windows this unergonomic, but now in hindsight, it’s also not that surprising, really.
Source? That's sure not the way I remember it. I don't think I ever saw OS/2 outside of in computer stores. I don't think I ever saw a single customer actually using it, either professionally or on a home computer.
No, now you are running an IDE that is badly pretending not to be a browser, while an entire second application has to work in the background eating even more RAM to provide you with access to documentation for each function at the cursor...
I mean, you could go write up an IDE that acts like that old one in a few weeks now. Could use a ton less RAM. You'll be the only person using it while everyone else uses the browser for convenience.
> "That almost nobody has the skills these days to implement something like TP is something we could eventually come to regret – or, rather, our grandchildren could. Software development is becoming a semi-skilled industry, and I doubt that the rise of AI will entirely compensate for this."
I agree, but AI also there is hope!
For many years I've worried about the ever-growing depth of abstraction in computing. There are few alive now who actually understand all of the layers on abstraction involved in modern computing, and who can debug the truly strange edge case bugs and vulnerabilities introduced by the interoperation of these many complex layers.
For a time I imagined it to be an unsolvable problem, and that there would always be only a special class of neurodivergent hyper-specialists who still mostly had to work in large teams to even come close to understanding a stack in full. We're reaching the point where a single human lifespan just isn't enough to learn it all, even for those of us with what Dilbert called "The Knack". By the time you're proficient in all of it - you're dead.
Now there is a new kind of intelligence. One that CAN fit it all in a single mind, and one that will outlive us all and continue to learn long after our meat has gone bad.
As long as the AI's stay aligned, and we find ways to build them more efficiently there's a non-zero chance that they actually make it all better instead of worse. Genuinely long-term planning and the ability to TRULY grasp the full stack COULD actually happen. At least if we use these new systems in service of the greater good, and not just to play silly games on the stock market.
Man, I haven’t seen Turbo Pascal since high school. We were lucky enough to have a CompSci class taught by our Stats teacher.
He offered three courses. CompSci 1 used Turbo Pascal and Delphi. CompSci 2 used C++ and Java. CompSci 3 used Microsoft Turbo Assembly and a language of the student’s choice.
We had to write our code and save them to floppy discs for submission since the lab systems had DeepFreeze installed on Win95, so any local storage wouldn’t persist.
My first real programming project was creating a pong clone on DOS using Turbo Pascal, as a 12 year old, in the mid 90s. Many years later, when I was in the penultimate year of uni, I worked as a freelance Delphi programmer. I had no idea Pascal would help me buy my first car many years later.
As someone born after the release of TP 7, this was a fascinating read!
I wouldn’t necessarily have expected for Microsoft to make development (at least the “intended” way) for early not-just-DOS Windows this unergonomic, but now in hindsight, it’s also not that surprising, really.
> Windows 3.1 [] not that there were many alternatives at that time
OS/2 was more popular than Windows 3.1.
Oh man, the good old days. Running Windows apps in OS/2 and having OS/2 run them faster because it was true 32bit.
Source? That's sure not the way I remember it. I don't think I ever saw OS/2 outside of in computer stores. I don't think I ever saw a single customer actually using it, either professionally or on a home computer.
Sure, that's anecdote. Do you have data?
No, now you are running an IDE that is badly pretending not to be a browser, while an entire second application has to work in the background eating even more RAM to provide you with access to documentation for each function at the cursor...
I mean, you could go write up an IDE that acts like that old one in a few weeks now. Could use a ton less RAM. You'll be the only person using it while everyone else uses the browser for convenience.
I have learned PC programming on the DOS version.