When I joined the company maintaining Unix, I was one of the younger ones. It's older X who knows how it's all built; because they did it.

By that logic, Bill Gates and Steve Wozniak were Boomers so Boomers all know how to fix computers.

Let's face it, "generational" assumptions are all too coarse to be valuable - and are probably just another way to separate and divide us all so we stop thinking about how to take down the ruling classes.

Ahhh I see. So what you're saying is that Gen X is actually the root of our problems? Boomers were just another symptom that needed a GUI.

Oh, but not "Boomer" so you can still say "Ok, Boomer?"

They should just be numbered. From best to worst, so Millenials would be 1 and Boomers would be like... 6? 7? How many generations have we had

Also, the bridge was designed as a suspension bridge, but nobody actually knew how to build a suspension bridge, so they got halfway through it and then just added extra support columns to keep the thing standing, but they left the suspension cables because they’re still sort of holding up parts of the bridge.

Idk if I’ve laughed this hard in a while

Once a week my coworker is like, this code has been working for years so we don’t touch it

Sauce? I just make stuff and opine freely. I think none of that is bullshit, but I'll debate it on a case-by-case.

That’s cool. We’re used to being forgotten and this way nobody will ask us to fix their computer.

Its almost like the "generations" are mostly arbitrary with a lot of overlap

I literally just fixed a zoomers laptop last night. Lol

My impression of C++ is that’s it’s actually C++++++++ as in, how many more decades of features can we cram into this language before it explodes

What’s a CD player /s

Fun fact about a random CD player. The USB-A external CD player Apple sold after removing the internal CD player kinda abused the USB standard. I believe it needed more current than was allowed by USB, so Apple found some way to make this specific device draw more power than the USB standard supported at the time. Today, I believe USB-C includes a handshake that negotiates power requirements, but at the time, USB-A didn’t support this.

Tbh, I don’t really know where assembly ends and machine code starts. But do know that assembly is tied to your specific architecture

Gen X are also pretty tech savvy. Let's not pretend like they didn't pave the way for us millennial to learn how to fix computers.

I say, as a tech retarded millennial, but fuck it, I'm right.

Locked down, sure.

But compared to generations before where a calculator* was rare? It's fine. Interested nerd will still consume knowledge on the good bits and the cycle will continue.

*"You can't count on always having a calculator", the teacher said, obviously not clairvoyant.

Whatever

Gen X seem to be either computer people or totally unaware. Millennials seem to be generally much less knowledgeable than the former and much more knowledgeable than the latter. Obviously there are millennials who are computer people, but my conception of them is more people who got computer science degrees than the person who lives in a shack in the woods and builds his own robots. Boomer computer people are even more formidable.

I’m not saying that’s true, but it’s the stereotype I have in my head.

You're not wrong about C++

Machine code is just the numbers, assembler is mnemonics and stuff and needs an "interpreter" to turn it into useful machine code (a C++ compiler also spits out machine code BTW).

Spot on about USB standards, no idea if apple did what you saulid though, wouldn't doubt it!

It's all perspective lol, how many of us would last a week logging...with out all the modern tech?

Or car mechanics, might not care how the fancy cloud works, but can talk about engines all day long.

The way I see it, we've all got our niche and help each other out with what we dedicate our time to learning.

My dad is close to 80. He's been PC savvy since the super early 1980s and he still is, although he is stuck in Windows because he's a monster in the astrophotography world and most of his software isn't supported in Linux etc. I dated a girl in college whose dad was one of the founding creators of the internet. Unlike Al Gore lol.

I taught my younger brother how to program in basic and pascal in the 80s. He's now a super successful programmer. I'm pretty poor but I like to build fix and upgrade people's computers as a hobby. I am gen x.

They said boomers so same dif.

I'm GenX, I bought my first PC in 1988, and made a living in part, setting up LANs, back when knowing anything at all about computers could get you a job. GenX early adopters taught millennials computers.

Gen Z / alpha: "fix the computer? Do you mean the phone?"