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Andy Belton wrote: Today the problem is that all the 'easy' stuff has been done. So we stuck with the more difficult and complex.
What is "hard"?
Is it detecting edges in grayscale 16 bit images in order to distinguish automatically between splinters of a glass jar and ok products, is it building a secure and usable e-commerce platform, or is it writing the software for automotive industry? Writing ERP, CRM or modules for them?
Different people will have different tresholds, mainly derived from their perspective and path.
From what I see most today problems are "easy" - they need no math skills, no algorithm creation, no optimizations, no real time - but they are astonishingly complex and chew up a lot of time. Also to complicate things there are pople who throw frameworks on the market like chamber-pots were emptied on the streets in the dark age...
GCS d--- s-/++ a- C++++ U+++ P- L- E-- W++ N++ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE- Y+ PGP t++ 5? X R++ tv-- b+ DI+++ D++ G e++>+++ h--- ++>+++ y+++* Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
If you think 'goto' is evil, try writing an Assembly program without JMP. -- TNCaver
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Relatively speaking, it's easier to solve the same problem that we solved 10 years ago.
Trouble is, we are now trying to solve harder problems because we can.
I may not last forever but the mess I leave behind certainly will.
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They start with Framework and become an expert of nothing.
I do not fear of failure. I fear of giving up out of frustration.
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true  as most Framework have sort function this lead most of us forget how to do sorting without Framework. Not only sort but others too
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I completely agree, in fact I was being able to pass a Java exam with 1 hour and half of study and 30 minutes of exercise, without never having use it before. And the exam itself wasn't dumb, much less than harder exams I passed - it actually had to pass 30 Unit Tests and the final product was somewhat rough but functional.
GCS d--- s-/++ a- C++++ U+++ P- L- E-- W++ N++ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE- Y+ PGP t++ 5? X R++ tv-- b+ DI+++ D++ G e++>+++ h--- ++>+++ y+++* Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
If you think 'goto' is evil, try writing an Assembly program without JMP. -- TNCaver
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I would say that for small software development teams, it become harder to make applications up to expectation because we have a lot more to do to have a great application now that it used to be say 20 years ago. Also there are so much possibilities now that a lot is required to have great applications.
But, if we want to make the same application now, it would be much easier to do as we have better tools.
This make me thing of the rule that software typically run slower now that it used to be but also does much more.
Philippe Mori
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I completely agree. All I would add is that there is an expectation now that every dev is a polygot (and generally we are) and that security has become a much more fundamental part of the work.
"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics."
- Benjamin Disraeli
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It's not becoming easier or harder, it's just changing, at least at a higher level.
If you target business-centric applications, everyone is trying to find the "Lego style" path where everything should be kind of pluggable.
With this, the problem moves from the development to the integration side.
Currently, you find a lot more challenges on the integration side than on the implementation.
Also, still on the dev side of things, "Lego style" is good until you find a brick that doesn't fit anywhere.
Then you start hammering it in and eventually it will stay there. The problem is when you need to put other bricks on top of that one and you find yourself searching for a bigger hammer more often than not.
The main problem is that these solution designs look really well on paper, and said Sales people and said Architects easily sell these things in colored diagrams, ignoring the implementation risks and ambiguity.
Oh well, it's another day in paradise! 
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only different!
New version: WinHeist Version 2.2.2 Beta I told my psychiatrist that I was hearing voices in my head. He said you don't have a psychiatrist!
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I agree. We have better tools and faster iron, but also have to deal with modern problems such as a multitude of form factors and service scale.
/ravi
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And I think that each generation builds on the last so although it may be harder kids already have more of a head start then we had.
New version: WinHeist Version 2.2.2 Beta I told my psychiatrist that I was hearing voices in my head. He said you don't have a psychiatrist!
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For sure! The young 'uns keep me on my toes and force me to stay abreast of technology. Still lovin' the ride after 30 years.
/ravi
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Ravi Bhavnani wrote: Still lovin' the ride after 30 years.
Wow you started when you were 6?
Programming is frustrating, infuriating, exasperating and then it works and it's one of the greatest rushes there is!
New version: WinHeist Version 2.2.2 Beta I told my psychiatrist that I was hearing voices in my head. He said you don't have a psychiatrist!
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When I was six, there were no ones and zeroes - only zeroes. And not all of them worked.
/ravi
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Ravi Bhavnani wrote: When I was six, there were no ones and zeroes - only zeroes. And not all of them worked.
This ended up in my signature. 
GCS d--- s-/++ a- C++++ U+++ P- L- E-- W++ N++ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE- Y+ PGP t++ 5? X R++ tv-- b+ DI+++ D++ G e++>+++ h--- ++>+++ y+++* Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
If you think 'goto' is evil, try writing an Assembly program without JMP. -- TNCaver
When I was six, there were no ones and zeroes - only zeroes. And not all of them worked. -- Ravi Bhavnani
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The internet is a lot more resourceful than in the past. Knowledge is easily accessible. The hard part is that over time things change and knowledge becomes faulty or obsolete. At the same time, things were less in the past... Less libraries, less garbage, less choices. I'm fortunate that I work in the language that has pretty much remained the same, namely C. The thing about how we use the language is that we try to put a framework down to make things easier in the future... Sometimes too easy. To the point where developing with the easy libs becomes tedious.
"Program testing can be used to show the presence of bugs, but never to show their absence."
<< please vote!! >></div>
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On one hand, the available tools are much better than the tools that we had in the past. On the other, we are also expected to do much more with them.
Certain specialized fields obviously require more esoteric knowledge than that available to your average programmer, but how many programmers are actually going to implement lock-free algorithms and such? Most of us would be quite content to purchase such libraries from an expert (or perhaps find them included in the standard runtime library?).
If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time - a tremendous whack.
--Winston Churchill
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Earlier days:
Machine level language -> Middle level language (C) -> High level language -> HTML controls in ASP -> ASP.NET controls -> ASP.NET(MVC) (Back to HTML Control again ) -> Again going towards to native language 
Find More .Net development tips at : .NET Tips
The only reason people get lost in thought is because it's unfamiliar territory.
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Build tools are great in software industry, but I am a student so I will whine about bad academics and bad teaching practices. Sorry.
Stupider in the sense that we are getting lazy, we are leaving everything on the shoulders of programs, such as compilers and build tools. A few problems of today are:
- We apply hacks until the problem fades away, or turns into another one.
- We lack knowledge of "the way computers work", we just press F5. Rest is history.
- Stuff like cross-platform native web applications — yes, you got me right, I am talking about JavaScript being used as native language — is making beginners lose their efficiency. In my times, only adults were allowed to lose it.
- Beginners are introduced with "good" tools that keep them from learning how the software industry works actually. Then they use beginners as a good investment and to do the monetization for the company.
- Bad coding practices. Can you imagine, Turbo C++ is still being taught in academics?
I don't want to start a debate or discussion, but, in my opinion every software developer must be taught about the low-level concepts. Not assembly, but at least C or C++ (if you are a fan of Object-oriented programming, anyways). I face students (my class fellows actually) who lack understanding of how a programming language works, but they do know how to cram an output of a loop with 5 as counter variable. That's sad.
Finally, if a developer know what a build tool is, they would be able to use Gradle, Ant or any other tool. If they are unaware of the core concept (as in today's era) they are going to end up using these tools in a very bad manner. I agree I am very bad at Gradle and that is exactly why I am learning the build tools procedures and until then I am trying to stay away from that build.gradle file in my Android applications.
The sh*t I complain about
It's like there ain't a cloud in the sky and it's raining out - Eminem
~! Firewall !~
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Good speech
M.D.V. 
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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This is very true.
One reason for this "way of doing things" are websites like stackoverflow. Don't get me wrong - it's a great help if you have a problem.
But many beginners (I see it day by day with my daughter and class mates of her) who just try to develop Android Apps by doing more or less a "copy-paste-session" from answers to different questions on SO and are then unable to determine why something isn't working as expected.
Because they all lack knowledge of the BASICS.
Yes, it's simple things like "how to navigate through folders or copy files in a shell". that basic-basic-basics. fundamentals. Things you "just need to know about how a COMPUTER works" before you think of "how a programming language works".
how shall one, who has no understanding of a filesystem work properly with folders/files and management of the local app folder, user profiles, etc... if this is "just words" for that beginner.
The tools are "too good" today. More like an end-user app like word or excel. Devtools do not require ENOUGH knowledge about the technology. It's too easy. And thats why you can see a worldwide trend of website getting worse and worse... simple login-windows often fail with strange errors today. Refreshed don't work... Apps keep consuming cpu in background. Simple games requre 85% of your device's cpu while in background...
Many of the today's newcomers lack basic knowledge. And this is a hard decrease in the overall software quality worldwide.
You know nothing, Jon Snow.
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Be that as it may, I encounter a lot of old folk, who, according to you, should have the understanding of how a programming language works, yet write code like it's 1960...
If your teachers don't get it, then why should other people get it?
I don't know why, but it seems there are indeed very few programmers who really understand what's going on.
That doesn't really have anything to do with the tools though.
Well, there's the old geezers who simply refuse to learn anything new after VB6... They may code .NET, but they write it like it's VB6 (or worse).
And those are the people that have to learn the newbies.
When you really understand programming it doesn't really matter what language you write in, it's all more or less the same anyway. There's a few core concepts, like memory management (garbage collection or no), object oriented principles, functional programming principles, database principles (SQL and NoSQL)...
The more tools at your disposal the better (if you can correctly use them)!
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Well, being active in the QA forum has made me realize that not even pressing F5 is common knowledge, or at least not put in a breakpoint in relevant places and also use F10 and F11.
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Please, can you visit every school in your country (and any others you can get to) and explain this. Not to the students, but to the teachers.
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I just did during my class of "Introduction to Programming" as well as "Object-oriented programming". I tried to fix them in a few areas where they were lagging. The result was I just got lucky to get an A grade in the first course, in second one teacher gave me a B grade. 
So, I came to conclusion that you cannot teach your teacher as long as you are their student. No matter what. 
The sh*t I complain about
It's like there ain't a cloud in the sky and it's raining out - Eminem
~! Firewall !~
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