Same as ever

Bryan Cantrill reflecting back on his days when he decided to become a software engineer.

When I entered university in 1992, it didn’t feel like the right time: the economy for new grads was very grim — and I knew plenty of folks who were struggling to find work (and accepting part time jobs that didn’t need a college degree at all while they searched for something better). I never doubted going to school, but I also have never taken a job for granted.

When I fell in love with computer science as an undergraduate and realized that I wanted to become a software engineer, it didn’t feel like the right time: Ed Yourdon had just written “The Decline and Fall of the American Programmer”, which boldly told any young computer science student that they were wasting their time — that all programming jobs would be done by cheap labor abroad. This argument felt wrong, but I was too in love with computer science to be talked out of it anyway.

When I decided that I was specifically interested in operating systems kernel development, it definitely didn’t feel like the right time: the conventional wisdom in the mid-1990s was that operating systems were done — that Unix was in decline and that the future clearly belonged to Microsoft. I ardently disagreed with this, and my conviction in 1996 brought me to the one company that unequivocally shared it: Sun Microsystems.

This is so relevant in today’s uncertain times. And this reminds me of the book Same as ever by Morgan Housel.