Post #2234003
2026-05-08 15:58 UTC
Replies (39)
-
@bridgeenjoyer@gamepad.club 2026-05-08 17:13
@TheJen@beige.party I wish id grown up in that era and done all that!! Modern coding doesn't interest me at all.. And its not worth learning old languages. Especially when anyone can ask a slop bot to spit out code for them. Kind of killed my want to learn any programming.
-
@pino@social.cologne 2026-05-08 16:14
@TheJen@beige.party If you mean some TikTok or Youtube channel named "command line", they'll find it for sure. ^^
-
@Guillotine_Jones@beige.party 2026-05-08 16:48
@TheJen@beige.party Many thanks, young TheJen, for sticking up for the pioneers, many of whom are oldies like me. (COBOL in high school.)
-
@robtherunt@cupoftea.social 2026-05-08 17:04
@TheJen@beige.party I was late to the computer party so only experienced swapping ICL mainframe disks and loading tape drives while writing COBOL for a living, but hey at 64 I think I can find my way round a PC without assistance from some young person. Tbf on the younger lot, they interact with computers in a different way - via handheld touch screens - so a mouse n keyboard is pretty odd for them.
-
@syphist@zoner.work 2026-05-10 14:37
@TheJen@beige.party my mom is the 1 proficient non-IT computer user at her job. If my sibling and I weren't both queer AF we could've easily had a kid by now thus making her a grandma. If I have to teach her something she retains it. It's to the point where I don't even need to look at her computer when she asks me for help because it's mostly just software recommendations to accomplish what she wants because I just know what's available. If anything it's people younger than me that don't know about undoing changes in Word or basic file management.
-
@stepheneb@ruby.social 2026-05-10 14:41
@TheJen@beige.party When I was a youngster writing my first programs I keyed in the machine language code on a hex keypad and saved the program on paper tape with a machine that made holes in the right places ;-) Later I upgraded to cassette tape storage! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KIM-1
-
@piuvas@capivarinha.club 2026-05-10 14:45
@TheJen@beige.party goated
-
@switch@tenforward.social 2026-05-10 15:58
@TheJen@beige.party I grew up in France. We had Thomson computers in schools in the 80's/90's and I was lucky enough that we had a Minitel at home. I coded my first webpages by hands too, downloaded fansubbed animes on IRC, my first ripped movie was The Matrix in which some of the music had been stripped to allow the file to fit a 650MB CDROM while retaining a watchable quality. I'm 45.
-
@Puck@sfba.social 2026-05-10 16:14
@TheJen@beige.party Yes, there are "grandma on the computer" folks, but fs, who do they think invented computers and the internet?
-
@raganwald@social.bau-ha.us 2026-05-10 17:21
@TheJen@beige.party Thank you for sharing this on Mother's Day. I have always known that "make it so that your wife/mother/grandmother could understand it" was misogynistic bullshit, because my own mother wrote mainframe software. http://braythwayt.com/posterous/2012/03/29/a-womans-story.html But for those men who still don't get it, maybe they need it explained in a way that is inclusive of their level of maturity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_computing
-
@failedLyndonLaRouchite@mas.to 2026-05-10 17:25
@TheJen@beige.party we need a female version of The story of Mel :)
-
@gilesgoat@toot.wales 2026-05-10 17:28
@TheJen@beige.party You are 52 and they call you "a grandma" ?? 😱 I am 56 and I did start learning something about computers in 1980 when I was 10 ! .. don't tell me I am a "grandpa on a computer !" 😅 "Damn IN MY TIMES we had 839 BYTES of ram and a BW TV and a cassette recorder ( borrowed ) " .. and in 2026 .. I am still coding some ASM at times 😊
-
@jmax@mastodon.social 2026-05-10 17:38
@TheJen@beige.party Yeah.
-
@jakob_thoboell@kirche.social 2026-05-10 17:44
@TheJen@beige.party Totally agree. Having been at primary school while Win XP reached the private Homes (and learned Linux and Windows since that time), I observe decreasing knowledge and competences with every New Generation of students.
-
@SteveBellovin@infosec.exchange 2026-05-10 17:46
@TheJen@beige.party @cstross@wandering.shop A long-time friend's mother was a computer programmer—on the Univac I…
-
@fellmoon@bsd.network 2026-05-10 17:48
@TheJen@beige.party I feel this way to much. We had a case recently where a guy from our AI Team actually asked claude how to find files on his mac... because he did not use git, because he did not know how to... Like ... Holy shit, calling himself senior dev ... I'm super fucking scared about the future, that will come out of this... strong feelings to grab my bsd boxes ans run the hills... and I'm only in my thirties...
-
@fellmoon@bsd.network 2026-05-10 17:52
@TheJen@beige.party also FWIW: "think about your grandparents!" Stuff always reminds me of a school friends grandpa in the early 2000s, who went from "computa what's that nomsense?" to "I'm gonna torrent all the things, put me into jail if you have a problem with this!" In like 1/2 a year after being exposed to a computer and the internet :flan_XD:
-
@acb@mastodon.social 2026-05-10 17:57
@TheJen@beige.party @cstross@wandering.shop “grandma” could be a stand-in for “someone old enough to expect computers to be deterministic machines, rather than shitty wish-granting genies”
-
@RonInDortmund@mastodon.scot 2026-05-10 17:58
@TheJen@beige.party Wrote my first programme (English spelling!) in PL/1 in 1969. Learned 360/Assembler in 1970. Modified IBM operating systems to make them faster. Later somehow drifted into management, consulting, sales training so lost touch with the bits and bytes. You are so right about the current generation, though. None of them know the difference between a feature and a benefit. Which is why so much software now is loaded with features which bring me no benefit. And don't get me started on UIs...
-
@drewdaniels@mastodon.online 2026-05-10 17:59
@TheJen@beige.party I hadn’t heard this phrase. Thank you for calling it out.
-
@Owen_G_Richards@writing.exchange 2026-05-10 18:03
@TheJen@beige.party I resemble many of those remarks - and I guess we both know more than those who spout the "grandma/grandpa" nonsense. Yes, I remember using a cassette too!
-
@tom@subdued.social 2026-05-10 18:11
@TheJen@beige.party Yeah, we used to marvel at how quickly toddlers took to using a mouse like it was second nature, but today I see young adults who have no concept of what a file or a directory are. I'm so glad I got my start with DOS instead of Windows or Mac.
-
@mikeash@mastodon.sdf.org 2026-05-10 18:13
@TheJen@beige.party “This computer is so easy to use, your kids could use it.”
-
@noplasticshower@infosec.exchange 2026-05-10 18:19
@TheJen@beige.party word! (8 bit variety)
-
@paul_ipv6@infosec.exchange 2026-05-10 18:25
@TheJen@beige.party i tend to use "non techy CEO". :)
-
@jvk@mastodon.org.uk 2026-05-10 18:35
@TheJen@beige.party Hear, hear! I passed Computer Science A level, 1974-76, on an Olivetti teletype connected by a Post Office private wire to the ICL mainframe at the town hall.
-
@Legit_Spaghetti@mastodo.neoliber.al 2026-05-10 18:40
@TheJen@beige.party It's a generational thing AND a sexist thing. I'm GenX. My generation did tech support for our parents and grandparents AND for our kids. The experiences of OUR youth created the "grandma's browser has a billion search bars" stereotype, because a lot of our grandparents DID click every single pop-up. But now that we're entering the grandparent age, we're still the technomancers we've always been, so the stereotype no longer fits. And also, women were always at the forefront of tech.
-
@wendyg@mastodon.xyz 2026-05-10 19:02
@TheJen@beige.party http://www.pelicancrossing.net/netwars/2017/01/your_grandmother_is_smarter_th.html
-
@rdfhrn@hessen.social 2026-05-10 19:03
@TheJen@beige.party 100% agree, however, "grandma on the computer" is true from one's perspective who is born in the 70th. (you and me)
-
@SalusaSecondus@wandering.shop 2026-05-10 19:10
@TheJen@beige.party my mom, who would be a grandmother now, spent much of her life as a professional developer. She brought home a copy of a development environment not needed at work (wrong system) for me to learn on. She was amazing and a much more skilled programmer and computer user than many people I've met.
-
@whangdoodler@piipitin.fi 2026-05-10 19:33
@TheJen@beige.party last i hears of my grandmother (+80 years) she was still on the top 10 of national charts in that one bubbleshooter game and spending a lot of time in the internet, especially facebook. she has moved to a facility in between here, i hope she was allowed to bring her computer with her.
-
@allpoints@mstdn.social 2026-05-10 19:35
@TheJen@beige.party i've always used "congressperson using tech" as short hand for uneducated users.
-
@sharpcheddargoblin@reclusive.blog 2026-05-10 20:11
@TheJen@beige.party Same.
-
@dfs_comedy@mastodon.social 2026-05-10 21:37
@TheJen@beige.party Almost 60 here, and yes... I've been programming since I was 15, professionally since I was 23. And my late Mom was happily using a Linux machine until her death at 89. Though to be fair, I installed and managed that for her. (A bit surprised you learned COBOL in college being only 52... I had no idea they taught COBOL into the 90s...) My language odyssey went something like: BASIC and 6809 Assembler (self-taught); Pascal, FORTRAN, C (University); C++ (self-taught) and a bunch more.
-
@StompyRobot@mastodon.gamedev.place 2026-05-10 21:58
@TheJen@beige.party well just start saying "teenager on computer"
-
@gcvsa@mstdn.plus 2026-05-10 22:11
@TheJen@beige.party 57 here, and same. I've been using personal computers since the first TRS-80 showed up at our local Radio Shack store, got my own Atari 800 with a whopping 10K of ROM and 48K of RAM and a cassette drive in 1981. I've been on the Internet (and using UNIX) since 1986, when I went to Carnegie-Mellon, about a decade before the public even knew it existed, and by the time they did in the mid-90s, I had founded what so far as I am aware was the first 100% broadband end-user ISP in the US.
-
@magmora@lgbtqia.space 2026-05-10 22:21
@TheJen@beige.party 'Grandma on the computer" now needs to mean hard coding 'l33t' computer user :P
-
@TheNovemberMan@bookstodon.com 2026-05-10 23:11
@TheJen@beige.party 👍💯👍
-
@christymarx@beige.party 2026-05-10 23:21
@TheJen@beige.party Not a programmer, but my first computer was a Kaypro 10. Wrote animation scripts in WordStar CPM and created databases in CPM. Created my first computer game at Sierra On-line in 1988. In my 70s now. Used to play WoW, but got bored with it.