I sometimes wonder if growing up before pre-built computers and lots of books about computers was actually a boon for my problem solving skills. I spent so many hours with nothing to go on but some schematics and my own persistent trial-and-error. If I'd done the same stuff these days I don't think I'd have learned half as much (although would I have done more, different things? Probably...)
Thing is, as someone probably a generation apart, at least, I don't disagree.
We all work within a context of abstractions, and in any given generation, poking and prodding at those abstractions and trying to understand what happens below it is immensely valuable and instructive. For one generation, below it might mean pen and pencil, and for the other it might mean looking into what jQuery actually does.
Let's not forget that 'pen and pencil' was once upon a time an abstraction inaccessible to many too!
This is what the previous generation pondered:
I sometimes wonder if growing up before pre-built computers and lots of books about computers was actually a boon for my problem solving skills. I spent so many hours with nothing to go on but some schematics and my own persistent trial-and-error. If I'd done the same stuff these days I don't think I'd have learned half as much (although would I have done more, different things? Probably...)