I like Chan's optimism and to an extent, I share it. But I'm still old-school when it comes to technology. Programmers and developers need mathematical basics that haven't changed in centuries.

The machines we work on reflect Bauhaus design-principles--their rounded lines are aesthetically pleasing and they fit well in trendy cases and sleeves. But every computer is fundamentally an adding machine working at furious speed, executing programs written by people in code that looks like a dashboard to the knowledge-worker. Every app, whether aimed at work or fun, is a grand illusion created by "the man behind the curtain."

We need the creative-types, the number-crunchers and the communication-experts. But we also need the men and women behind the curtain. They are the ones who write the upgrades that improve functionality and security for our modern tech-environment. They're the ones we contact when our cloud-servers need configuring, when our IP addresses clash, when our email inbox becomes a spam-o-copia.