Across this vast Fediverse, I have encountered a trend of people answering questions with esoteric programming language speaking in tongues that I don't understand, including under my own posts. I am a Boomer when it comes to coding and I am only 27. I don't even know where I would start to learn it because programming is so diverse. I want to feel like I know what's going on but I don't. Coding is the future and the future is now and I am lagging severely behind. I guess I'm asking where a bumbling novice like me can learn more about where to start when it comes to programming.

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[–] OldFartPhil@lemm.ee 14 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

I am a Boomer when it comes to coding

Hey, OP, I think it's cool that you'd like to learn to code. I made my living as a coder for many years and it's a good career path. But I would not say it's an essential life skill and the vast majority of people of all ages get by fine without coding skills.

With that out of the way, I'm going to defend the honor of Boomers here. Boomers (and the Silent Gen before them) built the technology industry as we know it today. For example, here's a list of popular programming languages and their inventors:

Java: James Gosling (1955) - Boomer
C: Dennis Ritchie (1941) - Almost a Boomer
C++: Bjarne Stroustrup (1950) - Boomer
C#: Anders Hejlsberg (1960) - Boomer
Python: Guido van Rossum (1956) - Boomer
PHP: Rasmus Lerdorf (1968) - X Gen
Perl: Larry Wall (1954) - Boomer
JavaScript: Brendan Eich (1961) - Boomer
Ruby: Yukihiro Matsumoto (1965) - Cusp of Boomer/X Gen
SQL: Raymond Boyce (1946) and Donald Chamberlin (1944) - Boomers
Go: Robert Griesemer (1964), Rob Pike (1956) and Ken Thompson (1943) - 2 Boomers and an almost-Boomer

. Thank you for your indulgence.

[–] favrion@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I didn't think computers ran on anything but steam back then.

[–] OldFartPhil@lemm.ee 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Mine was powered by hamster wheels. The damn wheels squealed all day long - drove me crazy. Not to mention the feed bill.

[–] favrion@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

That's odd. You would think that the government would treat its military technology better.