Thanks for this article, it was really thought provoking.

The parallels between cars and computers was spot on. Over the last 10-20 years I have found myself doing less under the bonnet of a car and cannot remember the last time that I opened up a pc. I guess this is a combination of less time, less need to do so and, in the case of cars, no longer being able to tinker due the design. Nowadays I just want to get up and running as quick as possible. I am not sure I have the patience to spend hours doing this type of thing.

Many years ago I used to laugh at my parents attempts to program the VHS video recorder, which was something I found so simple. Just recently one of my children 'organised' my Ipad for me. She found it so simple (it is when you know how). I never even knew I could up until that point. She laughed at me and then did the same with my phone, even setting up a new wallpaper with a silly photo. Probably made me feel like my parents did when I laughed at them.

There has been a worrying trend in recent years in that young people in the UK spend so long using apps on phones and tablets but there is not the interest in working out how these can be built. It seems so long ago from the early 80s when my friends and I used to spend hours programming on an BBC micro-computer.

ps I never even noticed the spelling mistakes....;-)