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I have long felt that our area is following a very similar arc to that of the older professions. I do however feel that we are failing to learn the lessons that are freely available from history.
There is a very good reason why the apprentice and guild systems arose, the fact that whole tracts of essential knowledge could only be learned through hands on-experience. These older systems structured this and ensured that this knowledge was handed on. At the moment too much is lost between generations of programmers, I find myself discovering rare nuggets in old text books, online or talking to older programmers
At present we are only just beginning to codify our skills in such a way that will obviate the need for these older systems, I would say that the identification of patterns and common methodologies is a good start but we are not there yet.
On another aspect, I do genuinely consider myself a craftsman, even though the code I write is often not visible to the end user, I take great pride in ensuring that whatever I produce is structured, documented and elegant, in all well-crafted. Unfortunately this attitude is not as common in our profession as I would like, many potentially decent programmers succumbing to the Nike school of management ('Just do it.'). While I can and do turn dirty hacks when I have to, I try to ensure that it does not happen all the time.
In summary, while I generally agree with the thrust of the article I would argue that you should be applying these lessons of history to now rather than just looking to the future.
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