I was having a conversation with a respected colleague yesterday and and we began discussing publications. His comment was that he stopped reading Dr. Dobb’s because it was full of complicated algorithms he’d never use. That struck a nerve within me. Although a side of me respects the drive towards simplicity, some things are necessarily complex. It seems that the computing field is becoming less tolerant of thinking hard about difficult problems. Early in my career we would ask candidates to pseudo code search algorithms or discuss the running time of a common sort using asymptotic notation. Now we primarly only want to know if they understand TDD and have used Grails before. Just last weekend at a regional conference I heard a thought provoking talk from an industry veteran about usability. He was soft spoken, however, the content he delivered was solid and interesting. Afterward I heard some complain that he wasn’t animated enough. Later in the day I heard a “social media” expert give a talk on twitter. It was interesting and funny and yet there was nothing profound or substantive in his talk. It was momentarily entertaining, but not filling, like soda and candy bar.
Just yesterday I heard that HP is shutting down their non-US based labs groups. So it seems that the “smarties” are not earning their keep. I believe there is a slow dumbing down of the technology profession. Some are concerned about dropping enrollment in CS, but I’d counter that it’s a sign of intelligence. The wise young person can probably perceive that intelligence has more leverage in other venues.