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Why Linux Is Not Attracting Young Developers
judeancodersfront writes "Jonathan Corbet recently pointed out at the Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit that the Linux kernel team was getting older and not attracting young developers. This article suggests the Linux kernel no longer has the same appeal to young open source developers that it did 10 years ago. Could it be that the massive code base and declining sense of community from corporate involvement has driven young open source programmers elsewhere?"
Maybe we should drop the code requirement.
Oh wait, that's HAM radio.
END
Dear Old People,
We're busy building iphone, android, facebook and twitter apps, with the delusion of a multi-million dollar payday.
BTW, thanks for all the open source stuff we're using.
Signed,
Young Developers
This is the reason I don't contribute. It's like suddenly being handed the US economy and saying "fix it!"
I think in the long run Alt Tabbing away from /. is a more useful skill to one's career than knowing only Java.
There is more to science than physics!
www.iomalfunction.blogspot.com
Well personally, I'm more annoyed by old coworkers who have limited knowledge of such basic things and write large chunks of unmaintenable and inflexible code and dump maintenance on you when they retire or move to another project.
At least the young ones you can do something about.
Seriously - at this point, just learning the kernel would be akin to a 6- or 8-year PhD project [in something like a Department of Archaeology, studying ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics].
This is totally off-topic, but Egyptian hieroglyphs are actually substantially easier to learn than modern written Japanese or Chinese, at least for Middle Egyptian, which is the version of the language one usually starts with. (Late Egyptian in many ways devolved into a deliberately complex secret code for the priesthood, but still involves knowing fewer signs than the average Japanese office clerk.)
I only mention this in case you're actually interested in learning ancient Egyptian -- I was put off by its complexity for many years until I started to tackle written Japanese and realized that I was attempting something much more difficult than Egyptian, at which point I attacked Egyptian with fresh vigor. That said, fluency in Japanese will get you further in a Shibuya nightclub than fluency in Middle Egyptian will get you anywhere. ;)
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
3. Here's real-world problem XXX, sketch out a solution and describe the algorithms+data structures involved.
You definitely need a hardcore programmer to solve XXX problems.