An essay mourns the last people who understand machines. Every generation has said that (unix.foo)
A programmer's essay mourns a vanishing kind of knowing: not skill, but the acquaintance you earn from a machine that resists you. "You only ever know the things you can lose to." AI can recite every manual flawlessly, he grants, yet that isn't the hands-on understanding built from struggle.
The thread turned on him. A programmer in Paris: back in 1990, classmates already called someone else to fix their PC. Another mapped the same nostalgia onto cars, telephones, electricity, then shrugged: "We could do this forever."
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