Mashup Programmer loves Bastard Pop

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My 13-year old son recently told me that he wants to be a computer programmer. A devastating announcement that threw me back into deep, introspective thoughts. You start to imagine all sorts of things. Where did it go wrong? Did he have a nasty accident in kindergarten and the teacher never dared to tell me? Does he eat enough fiber? Shouldn’t I have talked more with him about all the great things you can do in life?

Let’s be honest. I was utterly depressed.

Finally I came to reason, about three or four weeks later. I started to discuss with him. My son had not yet an idea of what programming language he wanted to learn. Some fuzzy MSN buddy had suggested him to dive into C++. It’s remarkable how calm you can stay under deep pressure. I felt this almost Buddhist joy of forgiveness when I told him – without shouting – which crimes have been committed in the past twenty years in the name of C++. That many of his crashing applications have been written by C++ programmers that love to do silly, funny things with computer memory. That the so called buffer overflow has inspired a whole generation of hackers. That C++ teaching books are no longer allowed in hand luggage at Heathrow. That the programming language is ridiculously complex, like its modern brothers Java and C#, and that you have to be an expert in maths to understand it.

Especially this last argument had effect. Maths! That’s for losers and nerds.

So far, so good. This road would not be taken. But then, what was the alternative? I started to realise that my son has a completely different view of what programming actually is. He is – of course – mainly interested in building web sites. And he does not intend to start from scratch. He envisions a window with an eclectic composition of YouTube movies, satellite images and the built-in search of Google, Flickr pictures and a news feed from Blogger. You know, as a first exercise.

Obviously the profile of a Mashup Programmer, 2006 style. The concept of ‘mashup’ (also: ‘bastard pop’) is familiar to most teens: DJ’s mix two songs, taking the music track of one song and the vocals of another. For instance Kylie Minogue, doing something metaphysical with lalalalalalalala on the booming beat of New Order’s Blue Monday.

Oh well, it’s just an example.

Now, the same principals are applied to building applications for the browsers. Mashup applications are build with lightweight programming languages that seem to be created to glue together bits and pieces of functionality that can be found all across the Web. Languages like Javascript, PHP and Python and certainly also even newer relatives like Ruby on Rails (arguably the star of this time) and Water, a language which was designed to build and compose web services.

Mashup programming looks like a lightish, not so serious activity. But the success is determined by the combination of fast and flexible orchestration on one hand and the availability of mission-critical, robust services on the other hand. Just think of the efficiency of the server farm that is hidden between that simple Google Search interface.

In the near future, Mashup services won’t just be made available by Flickr, MySpace or Yahoo: IT departments of ‘ordinary’ organizations will develop them too. They will enable other parts of the organization to quickly compose smart, opportunistic applications at exactly the place where it counts: close to new business opportunities. And it won’t take long before we need more Mashup programmers than classically educated software engineers from the past.

Not such a bad career perspective after all. I’ll check it anyway. About that fiber.

Posted by Ron Tolido on August 25, 2006 in Technology | Digg this | Seed Newsvine

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Comments

# on August 25, 2006 7:58 PM, Dinesh Joshi said:

Excuse me sir but it wasn't very nice to say that you were "depressed", "devastated" when your son said he wanted to be a programmer. I've been programming ever since I got my first computer ( a 386DX ) and I've always enjoyed it. It makes you a better person. Why? Well, it teaches you patience and enables you to pay attention to detail. Nothing else in this world is going to teach these two invaluable qualities. I am making it my career ( well, not as a programmer but I hope to be a product developer one day ) and it has always given me an edge over my peers and even my seniors ;) So its not so bad after all.

Yes, and I do agree about what a mess C++ is. But Java and C# are rather good improvements over it :)

# on August 25, 2006 9:32 PM, Dirk Karl Maßat said:

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# on August 25, 2006 10:22 PM, Brian said:

I've actually had a few conversations with colleagues around this topic in recent years so thought I would throw in my two pence worth (no guarantees on that value by the way!)

Let's start by pointing out a fairly basic observation - programming nowadays barely resembles that of the a decade or two ago, which in turn was a world apart from the FORTRAN IV, BASIC or Machine Code days. As a premise this dictates your son’s generation will look back at our prehistoric programming approaches (such as highlighted above) with equal cynacism.

Having said that, I would also point out that the basic principles remain consistent … logical thinking, modular design, rational approaches and so forth.

This is where I think we should specifically focus on generating our future generation of software developers (or whatever nom de plume is applied to the career).

As an aside, this obviously distracts from the pigeon-holing of career we have suffered from for some time now.

On the subject of becoming an expert in maths (please note the ‘s’, short for mathematical sciences just physics is for physical sciences – sorry, as a mathematician I couldn’t resist comment!) It could be argued that, given the above, this represents an excellent foundation to the skills listed earlier.

This does lead to another very interesting debate. We have all read of the rapid decline in the adoption of sciences and languages (another subject which can prove an interesting grounding for programming skills). This should seriously worry all of us, but put yourselves in you children’s shoes. Wouldn’t you prefer to adopt subjects such as management consulting or hairdressing - as recognised as “iconic” careers? (see http://www.silicon.com/cxoextra/0,3800005416,39161651,00.htm)

To put it another way, why learn subject for which there is minimal employment? … Or does this return to the earlier topic of pigeon-hole careers? Perhaps we need to focus our children on the ingredients rather than the recipe.

# on August 25, 2006 10:45 PM, Pete said:

@Dinesh,
Don't take things too seriously. The author was just mentioning the lighter side of programming. I have been programming since a long time and I found the article humorous and informative.

# on August 25, 2006 11:54 PM, Ron Tolido said:

@Dinesh & Pete: just to make sure, I was a programmer for many, many years - a classically educated software engineer - and definitely, thoroughly enjoyed it. Well, okay, here's my coming out: I even taught C++ at the The Hague Polytechnic and wrote a book about the language... Now you know. Deleted it from my CV, of course.

The irony in my words should be obvious.

Nevertheless, I hold on to my opinion. About the fiber, that is.

# on August 26, 2006 12:03 AM, Ron Tolido said:

@Brian,

Thanks for your excellent builds. And I changed 'math' to 'maths'. As a Dutchmen, a non-native English speaker and writer, it's just difficult every now and then to produce decent English.

# on August 26, 2006 6:07 PM, Brian said:

Thanks Ron - Was actually meant as a tongue-in-cheek dig at any american readers.

Hopefully my comments generally will spur some feedback though.

# on September 14, 2006 6:11 PM, Byron said:

Ron - I think you’re right on about mashups, and if Excel taught us anything, end users will bring them to the desktop to solve business problems soon enough.

When I was growing up I used HyperCard which taught me a lot about programming in a fun, digestible way prior to getting my first C++ book.

I wrote a post about mashups and gluing environments a week back (http://www.protosw.com/blog/), and if your son wants to learn some basic programming concepts in a friendly environment, he’s welcome to a non-commercial, inquisitive-mind license of our software.

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Ron - I think you’re right on about mashups, and if Excel taught us anything, end users will bring them to the desktop to solve business problems soon enough.
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.Thanks Ron - Was actually meant as a tongue-in-cheek dig at any american readers..

Hopefully my comments generally will spur some feedback though..

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Having said that, I would also point out that the basic principles remain consistent … logical thinking, modular design, rational approaches and so forth..

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Cheer up! When I was thirteen I also wanted to be a programmer. I'm not one now. So, there may still be hope for your son!
The reason I wanted to be a programmer was so that I could create games. Adventure games to be exact. In fact, if I could have worked for Sierra back then I would have been delighted! Then I started giving it a bash – and maths was also what made me become thoroughly turned off to the idea. I realised that I didn't want to program, I just wanted to design games. And, actually, what intrigued me about adventure games was the idea of a story line. Hence, I came to the conclusion, that I wanted to be a writer not a computer programmer. You can guess what I'm doing now...
So, there still may be hope for your son! Don't give up :) He he...

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Mashup programming is definitely a very popular form of programming, and you're right about that when we see the popularity of Python and Ruby (Python still seems to be very popular compared to Ruby, but Ruby is definitely very popular.) I suppose that it is the ultimate form of where OpenSource takes us – as we can really mix and mash applications and other people's programming into something that works even better. I think, personally, that it's a very good thing.

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