The Future of Geekdom

Once upon a time, if you had a personal computer, you were by very definition a Geek. You had a pretty good idea why your computer worked, how it worked, what went where and why. But you didn't know all that for sure until you had your PC for a while. You might have built your PC yourself, but you didn't have a really decent idea of how it worked for a while.

Back then, PCs came with what I think was the best hands-on learning tool for emerging geeks, BASIC. One version or another came by default with at least an interpreter of BASIC code. This made perfect sense, as BASIC (Beginner's All Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) was where Bill Gates got his own start on his path to inner Geek enlightenment.

Most all versions of DOS, and early Windows, had at least BASIC or BASICA interpreters. You could write programs, save them, debug them, play with them, read files, write files, control the screen and colors, and just have a ball! And, learn a lot along the way about how your PC "thinks".

Alas, Microsoft eventually got rid of good old BASIC, in favor of Visual Basic (VisBas). VisBas is cool and all, but, unlike good old BASIC, it wasn't free. Seems Big Bill realized the potential dollar value of all these nascent geeks writing their own code, and started charging even more for the "privilege". As a direct result, BASIC went the way of FORTRAN, disappearing into the mists of computer history.

What went away with BASIC was any easy way for beginning geeks to learn to program on their own, at their own pace, without shelling out more buckage. At least, such is the case in the Windows world. and more is the pity.

As a consequence, Windows users have become, well, users. People who have no clue about how a program works, calculates, stores information, anything. People who look at a computer just as they would any other appliance, like a stove or a dishwasher. Push this button, magic happens, what you want comes out the other end. Yipee.

But, when the inevitable happens, the magic smoke gets out, the tame demon does not to as commanded, what does a geek do? Roll up his/her sleeves, dig into it, figure it out, learn a lot, maybe even fix the problem. But fix it or no, the geek will lose a lot of fear about the inner workings of the computer, hardware and software.

The user will just stop. Sit back, cry for help, be confused, get angry, and feel helpless. Sadly, the percentage of non-geek users is rising rapidly. "Geek" is a household term, yet there are fewer and fewer of us. And, from a professional point of view, that's a good thing, at least as far as job security is concerned. But from a quality-of-life point of view, this situation really sucks.

But, hope exists. There are options. Curious windows users can still find all manner of programming languages available for download. If they overcome their fear of the mystical magical machine, they can download and install an environment where they can actually write some code.

Even better, there is a viable alternative to programming-free Windows. Almost any of the Linux variants come with all manner of compilers, the most prevalent being good old C. But, you can also write some great code right in the shell - like a DOS Batch file, but with loops, conditionals, file read-write, the works. Matter of fact, I myself once wrote a complete text-based email system, a replacement for Elm/Pine/Mail, for AIX, completely in KSH shell code. This program was used by Pelican Lumber for several years -- as far as I know, it's still in use.

Geeks will gravitate to where they can learn and grow and play, and even show off. More and more frequently, geeks are grabbing a Linux version like Ubuntu and running with it.

Yes, I know, there are uncounted millions of Windows users, compared to a mere few million Linux geeks. But if you look beyond the numbers, if you look at the migration of skill sets away from Windows (especially fleeing Vista in droves), you'll see the geeks are all going to Linux. When all these geeks grow up, get promoted into management or start their own businesses, which OS do you think they'll opt for?

Microsoft, you have written your own future, as you always have. This time, however, that future will be dictated by what you deliberately left out. That's what will bite you in the proverbial backside.