The 19 generations of computer programmers
Here is our guide to some of the more dominant tech generations in computer history, as embodied by the programmers who gave them life
By Peter Wayner | InfoWorld | Published: 17:09, 08 January 2013
JavaScript programmers (second generation)
Somewhere along the way, JavaScript programming turned into a professional path with snooty ideas and endless debates about what constitutes clean code. Today, many Web pages are powered by sophisticated stacks of code that can only be maintained by skilled coders. The field is now dominated by efficient libraries that abstract away much of the browser incongruities and offer a sophisticated plug-in structure.
Other language of choice: jQuery
Special skill: Closures
Social media strategy: Waiting for App.net
Other career choice: Working as a barista
Clothing: Hoodie
Rhetorical tic: "There's an open source jQuery plug-in that does it."
Car: Fixed-gear bicycle
Song: M83, "Midnight City"
Favourite artifact: DM from Brendan Eich
Haskell programmers
The language of the future offers a functional, statically typed mechanism that can reduce some of the complexity for writing modern, event-driven code. While the first implementations are easily more than 20 years old, the main users are still found in universities, but that's changing as cool open source projects gain traction. Haskell lovers insist this proves it will be the hot language in the 2020s.
Other language of choice: ML
Special skill: Getting around the prohibitions on keeping state around
Social media strategy: Alumni Notes, Reddit
Other career choice: Professor of mathematics
Clothing: Turtleneck sweater with elbow patches
Rhetorical tic: "I like my laziness effortless and ubiquitous."
Car: Yugo
Song: Karlheinz Stockhausen's "Klavierstücke IX"
Favourite artifact: Möbius strip
Hadoop programmers
The tool for building map/reduce jobs is technically not a language, but a collection of libraries written in Java. Not that it matters - writing the code requires a talent for spotting the best way to spread out the workload over a cluster of machines. As long as "big data" remains a buzzword that captivates the corporate leadership, we'll see more exploring the best way to write Hadoop jobs.
Other language of choice: Java
Special skill: Making sure the data is always local
Social media strategy: Yahoo coding conferences
Other career choice: Actuary
Clothing: Flannel shirt with beard, where possible
Rhetorical tic: "Big data."
Car: Retro Schwinn 10-speed bike
Song: Dan Deacon's electronica
Favourite artifact: Stuffed elephant
Node.js programmers
They learned JavaScript when they were adding an interactive Easter egg to their band's Web page. Now they're working for the enterprise shop and using that same JavaScript to handle $10 billion in foreign-exchange transactions a day.
Other language of choice: jQuery
Special skill: Trying to remember not to block the server with code that takes too long to execute
Social media strategy: Post-Facebook, post-Path, still bummed that Diaspora hasn't gone very far
Other career choice: Going to college
Clothing: Ironic T-shirt from Old Navy
Rhetorical tic: "Threads can be concurrent? Are you sure?"
Car: Skateboard
Song: "Video Games" by Lana del Rey
Favourite artifact: Rooted Android cellphone running Node
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