No one likes to program anymore!

Slashdot had this on it today:

From his journal, hogghogg asks: "I keep finding myself in conversations with tertiary educators in the hard sciences (Physics, Astronomy, Chemistry, etc.) who note that even the geeks—those who voluntarily choose to major in hard sciences—enter university never having programmed a computer. When I was in grade six, the Commodore PET came out, and I jumped at the opportunity to learn how to program it. Now, evidently, most high school computer classes are about Word (tm) and Excel (tm). Is this a bad thing? Should we care?" Do you think the desire to program computers has declined in the younger generations? If so, what reasons might you cite as the cause?

I think that the reason programming might not appeal to the masses as it used to may be because nothing anyone can make compare to the software available commercially.

Back in the day, people would make a spreadsheet program for themselves, and use it. People would make a calculator, and use it. Hell, maybe even a game! These days, it's not possible for most computer end users to create anything useful for themselves, when compared to the commercially available software.

Whether or not this is good or bad is way to subjective for me to have any desire to get into, but I'd say one thing: It reflects that as a society, we've taken programming to a level of sophistication that can only be accomplished by a collaborative and dedicated effort, something most 6-year-olds probably don't get excited about.