Friend who is not a software person sent me this tweet, which amused me as it did them. They asked if “runk” was real, which I assume not.
But what are some good examples of real ones like this? xz became famous for the hack of course, so i then read a bit about how important this compression algorithm is/was.
The thing I’m concerned about is how little non-programmers know. I think that much of the world went “oh, GenZ are digital natives, that means they’ll know their way around computers naturally” when if anything, being “digital natives” is part of the problem. But like my original comment said, I attribute a lot of blame to Microsoft’s impact on IT education.
I can’t speak much on how much programmers tend to know, because I am a biochemist who started getting into programming when studying bioinformatics, and then I’ve continued dabbling as a hobbyist. I like to joke that I’m a better programmer than the vast majority of biochemists, and that’s concerning, because I’m a mediocre programmer (at best).
Oh yes, that is very concerning. They grew up with software developed for the lowest common denominator, and phones that do many of the things that computers were relied upon previously. Most people know how to go online, post stuff to social media, and that’s about it. It’s scary.