If you could time travel and bring back programmers from the 1980s or 90s, would they be able to grasp the code behind modern games or software? Even if they don't have the hardware to run it, could they make sense of the coding concepts and structures used today?
5 Answers
Yes, they'd understand modern code concepts, but they might not be familiar with the newer languages or certain paradigms like OOP that have become predominant now. Given some time to learn and adapt, I think they'd do just fine!
Definitely! They’d probably chuckle at how we've reinvented some ideas from their era but then adopted tools that make things more accessible for us today.
As someone who started coding in the late 80s, I can confirm that, yes, we can still understand today's code! Most coding principles have remained consistent, even if the tools have evolved. Familiar constructs like arrays and functions still exist, just wrapped in newer syntactic sugar. It might be a bit daunting, but it's definitely manageable.
For sure! But I think they’d still be surprised at the complexity of the tools and frameworks we use today. They’d probably say, 'Why is it so bloated?'
Absolutely! The concepts haven't really changed, but the volume of code and tools has definitely increased. A good understanding of the original fundamentals would help.
Sure, they would get the basic code structure without issue. But I think they'd need some time to adjust to today's frameworks and libraries. The logic behind programming hasn't changed, but all the shiny new tools would definitely take some getting used to!
Totally! And a lot of them might find modern methods like async programming or cloud architectures pretty foreign, to be honest.
Right? Modern programming often abstracts things away to a point where older developers might feel lost if they haven't kept up. But the foundational concepts are timeless.
For sure, they would understand the code itself, but the complexity of modern tooling might blow their minds. Think package managers and all the cloud stuff! It's like comparing a basic car from the 80s to a self-driving Tesla. They'd probably grasp the syntax, but not the whole ecosystem around it.
Exactly! Anyone from the 80s would be like, 'Why do we need all these layers of abstraction?' They generally did so much with so little.
Yeah, they might get frustrated at the reliance on tools that obscure what's really happening under the hood. But in terms of core programming concepts? They’d likely get it quite quickly.
Honestly, it's not much different than asking if an author from the 80s could read a novel today. Sure, they'd miss some cultural references, but the fundamentals of programming—like loops and conditionals—remain the same. A lot of what seems "new" in modern coding, like Docker, are just reinventions of older concepts. They'd probably adapt relatively quickly with some context.
But it's also true that they might struggle with modern abstractions. I mean, there's a lot of cognitive load with frameworks like Angular or React that didn't exist back then. They might feel right at home with basic desktop development, but web development? That's a totally different beast.
And let's not forget the sheer scale of modern projects! A 1980s programmer might wonder why codebases can be millions of lines long and backed by dozens of services.
True! There's a ton of knowledge that's carried over. They might even find some new features pretty cool, once they wrap their minds around them.