Although trained in physics, I worked in the computing industry with pride and purpose for over 40 years.
-
Although trained in physics, I worked in the computing industry with pride and purpose for over 40 years. And now I can do nothing but sit back and watch it destroy itself for no valid reason beyond hubris (if I'm being charitable).
Ineffable sadness watching something I once loved deliberately lose its soul.
brother.
But first, it burned me out. -
Although trained in physics, I worked in the computing industry with pride and purpose for over 40 years. And now I can do nothing but sit back and watch it destroy itself for no valid reason beyond hubris (if I'm being charitable).
Ineffable sadness watching something I once loved deliberately lose its soul.
Given your experience, how does this compare for you to the dot com boom? To me it seems like a similar combination of investors not wanting to miss out and not really understanding the thing and marketing departments happy to agree to all requests resulting in a big bubble about to pop. I'm anticipating in five or ten years there will still be LLM tools helping in what manner they actually can, the same way we still use websites after the dotcom crash, but all of the shenanigans will have collapsed under the weight of their impossibility.
-
But hey, the industry has spoken. Who am I to question it?
@robpike The counter revolution is underway. Those of us who still remember how computers can be playgrounds of exploration unto themselves, and not just means to extraction and rent seeking, will have had our fill of the contradictions, doublespeak, and outright lies. The kids with their weird hair and 9front on their ThinkPads grow relentlessly restless. Those that value autonomy, joy, artistry, and craftsmanship, will ultimately win. Far too much of our collective future is at stake.
-
I spent my time trying to make it better. Not just write code, but find better or at least different ways to do so. Simpler, cleaner, more general, more comprehensible.
What's happening today is a complete repudiation of everything I was trying to achieve.
@robpike lots of us appreciate your work a great deal, and still believe in those principles, despite the folly that the wider industry has decided to chase. I feel a bit adrift in unfamiliar and hostile seas but at least it’s good to hear a familiar voice of reason over the squall
-
Although trained in physics, I worked in the computing industry with pride and purpose for over 40 years. And now I can do nothing but sit back and watch it destroy itself for no valid reason beyond hubris (if I'm being charitable).
Ineffable sadness watching something I once loved deliberately lose its soul.
Same. I think this is exactly why a lot of the 'retro computing' channels have gazillions of viewers these days.
-
Although trained in physics, I worked in the computing industry with pride and purpose for over 40 years. And now I can do nothing but sit back and watch it destroy itself for no valid reason beyond hubris (if I'm being charitable).
Ineffable sadness watching something I once loved deliberately lose its soul.
@robpike
Hall of Wisdom:
"worse is better", Richard P. Gabriel, 1989, techie.
"the worse, the better", Mariano Rajoy, 2017, prime minister.
"worse is the new better", John, 2022, electrician.
"sit back and watch it destroy itself", Rob Pike, 2026, retiree
wuhuuuu!!! -
But hey, the industry has spoken. Who am I to question it?
This is not "the industry".
It's a handful of power-hungry assholes ruining everything for everyone.
-
@robpike The counter revolution is underway. Those of us who still remember how computers can be playgrounds of exploration unto themselves, and not just means to extraction and rent seeking, will have had our fill of the contradictions, doublespeak, and outright lies. The kids with their weird hair and 9front on their ThinkPads grow relentlessly restless. Those that value autonomy, joy, artistry, and craftsmanship, will ultimately win. Far too much of our collective future is at stake.
@xan @robpike I hope the seasoned veterans will start actively making IRL groups to teach even just the basics of how they can protect themselves, learn a bit, and become an active participant in their lives and not a passive victim.
Places like the fediverse are great but most of them outside the "geeks and gamers" have no clue this even exists. And if they do, it's an old nerds place with a high bar of entry.
-
I spent my time trying to make it better. Not just write code, but find better or at least different ways to do so. Simpler, cleaner, more general, more comprehensible.
What's happening today is a complete repudiation of everything I was trying to achieve.
@robpike This resonates so strongly with me and makes me so sad. I spent much of the last 30 years writing and education people on how to write code to do graphics, animation, physics simulations, games, etc. And I feel the same as you just described. "Ineffable sadness".
-
@robpike This resonates so strongly with me and makes me so sad. I spent much of the last 30 years writing and education people on how to write code to do graphics, animation, physics simulations, games, etc. And I feel the same as you just described. "Ineffable sadness".
@robpike Also, my language of choice for doing all that stuff over the past 8-9 years has been Go. So thank you for that!
-
Although trained in physics, I worked in the computing industry with pride and purpose for over 40 years. And now I can do nothing but sit back and watch it destroy itself for no valid reason beyond hubris (if I'm being charitable).
Ineffable sadness watching something I once loved deliberately lose its soul.
@robpike I trained as a Civ Eng and ended up in IT (only 35 years so far).
I'm having as much or way more fun nowadays than I did in the, say, noughties. Back then I worked at a SME that makes helicopters in the UK. PCs were all beige and ran Windows. We had VAXen and a mainframe for a bit of variety but that was it. My work PC did end up running Redhat and then Mandrake and then Gentoo but it was a bit complicated.
Nowadays, my wife has been rocking Arch for a good 10 years and she still calls it Facebook or the internet!
I've nearly migrated all my VMware customers to Proxmox. I run my own email systems on prem. I run DNS servers for my firm and our customers - DNSSEC (we'll be more careful than .de) and dynamic DNS and LUA courtesy of PowerDNS.
I have CAs, Ansible and all sorts of good stuff. Ooooh and IoT: Home Assistant and I have a 3D printer - sci-fi dreams for my 15 year old self
I still have my Commodore 64. It now has USB storage and a HDMI out to my telly.
-
Although trained in physics, I worked in the computing industry with pride and purpose for over 40 years. And now I can do nothing but sit back and watch it destroy itself for no valid reason beyond hubris (if I'm being charitable).
Ineffable sadness watching something I once loved deliberately lose its soul.
@robpike Same here, buddy. This is sad.
-
Although trained in physics, I worked in the computing industry with pride and purpose for over 40 years. And now I can do nothing but sit back and watch it destroy itself for no valid reason beyond hubris (if I'm being charitable).
Ineffable sadness watching something I once loved deliberately lose its soul.
it is tragic that venture capital nonsense has derailed one of the most useful technologies into a cesspit of false values and images. We can still get it back, though
-
Although trained in physics, I worked in the computing industry with pride and purpose for over 40 years. And now I can do nothing but sit back and watch it destroy itself for no valid reason beyond hubris (if I'm being charitable).
Ineffable sadness watching something I once loved deliberately lose its soul.
@robpike Thank you for saying this out loud. Many of us deeply share the sentiment and feel powerless.
-
@randomgeek @GeePawHill @robpike Definitely agree on the last 10-15 years. Honestly, I probably fell out of most of it about 10 years ago, but managed to carve out a little niche for myself doing some advanced CS topics for awhile. That's pretty much run it's course at this point though.
I loved the struggle of solving problems and challenging myself. Just not getting it with the current stuff. I dunno--maybe there's something there, but I don't care.
-
Although trained in physics, I worked in the computing industry with pride and purpose for over 40 years. And now I can do nothing but sit back and watch it destroy itself for no valid reason beyond hubris (if I'm being charitable).
Ineffable sadness watching something I once loved deliberately lose its soul.
@robpike In 40 years you've seen a lot of computer technology "destroyed" and a lot of new stuff coming. That's still happening and will continue - mostly for the better.
-
Although trained in physics, I worked in the computing industry with pride and purpose for over 40 years. And now I can do nothing but sit back and watch it destroy itself for no valid reason beyond hubris (if I'm being charitable).
Ineffable sadness watching something I once loved deliberately lose its soul.
@robpike Thank you.
-
Although trained in physics, I worked in the computing industry with pride and purpose for over 40 years. And now I can do nothing but sit back and watch it destroy itself for no valid reason beyond hubris (if I'm being charitable).
Ineffable sadness watching something I once loved deliberately lose its soul.
@robpike
I'm having a little of that feeling also, from a similar experience. -
If the world survived Perl, VBA, CORBA, SGML/XML, and Code Generation from UML, it can survive this.
I sure hope our beloved industry survive this wave of self-destruction, mate.
The fundamental difference I observe, at least in my small corner of the world, is that modern AI seems to be eroding the professionalism of the very practitioners of AI. This wasn’t the case with prior technological hypes, from FRP and micro services, back through time, to FORTRAN and ENIAC.
In some ways, AI appears to be validating and encouraging unprofessionalism, the same way today’s political discourse on social media is validating and compounding ignorance.
-
Although trained in physics, I worked in the computing industry with pride and purpose for over 40 years. And now I can do nothing but sit back and watch it destroy itself for no valid reason beyond hubris (if I'm being charitable).
Ineffable sadness watching something I once loved deliberately lose its soul.
Thank you, Rob Pike, for posting this.
I am in a different field, and of little importance in that field, so it is preposterous of me to comment here, forgive me. But I wish to express how much energy I gain from reading your post.
The wave of inauthenticity is all-encompassing. I spent some four decades as a university teacher, with immense pride, only to see the very notion of teaching and education destroyed before my eyes. My friends in other professions experience the same.
I still hope for reversal.
Your message is one of sadness and loss, but is also a sign of resistance. As one of the true pathbreakers and arbiters of good taste in your field and beyond, your voice gives strength to others who try to hold on to notions of authenticity, simplicity, elegance, humility.
We pray these professional values will survive the long winter we are currently experiencing.
