You're technically correct, but what you really mean is: Noah is not a younger version of you. He's a younger version of me, clearly sick of being offered US$15 per hour, as he says, to code advanced Web pages.

But there's no generational shift here. Ever since Bill Gates became rich and powerful, programmers have flaunted the fact that being childishly snotty and arrogant are considered normal for the profession. As long as they write good code on time and don't hack the CEO's laptop, no one cares.

Gartner's meme isn't a complete crock, but it's in some ways a rehash of the idea floated around the mainstream media in 1981 that kids who played videogames were a new breed of human, whom grownups would never be able to understand because they didn't start playing videogames at age eight (see the 1982 album cover for The Who's It's Hard, above.)

Burke claims that Stokes is "telling you that he's not going to fit in to your company, but if your company fits him then he may work there ... We need to rethink how we are going to attract and retain the best and brightest of Noah's generation."

Here's a crazy idea, Brian: Pay them.