There is something that to me still rings very true, almost 20 years later: Microcomputers (computing at large) are very appealing to MBAs, today we'd prefer the term "consultant" or the newly self-appointed Gods of the Software world, the "VC".
They suck the fun out of it for the most part; they have no passion for software, clearly they're in it simply because it's a lucrative business.
Academia comes off as an alternative with a whole different set of problems...
It seems that there's little place left for the Wozniaks of this world, true hackers who write 40K sofware that revolutionize industries, while doing it for "fun".
While active, _why was a vocal evangelist of that vision.
Camping, for example, is an MVC framework written in less than 4K of Ruby code. It was at its time the go to microframework in the Ruby world. Then _why disappeared, and the releases staled for a while, and Sinatra took the spot.
they do it because it's obvious and EASY, and yet, not one did. So they do it for satisfaction. Everyone likes low-effort-high-reward tasks.
it may be easy because they used their whole lives preparing for the feat. but for them, it's easy. the main problem is that the MBA types can't see the obvious. there lies all the problems. VCs are just a new name for MBAs of yesterday. a couple of them see past the obvious, but that will go away soon and we will need another nomenclature for the few that still sees past it.
They suck the fun out of it for the most part; they have no passion for software, clearly they're in it simply because it's a lucrative business.
Academia comes off as an alternative with a whole different set of problems...
It seems that there's little place left for the Wozniaks of this world, true hackers who write 40K sofware that revolutionize industries, while doing it for "fun".