I've discussed this with some friends in the past.<p>I think the tragedy that befell Software Engineering was that most companies had no Engineering track for a career. To advance your career you generally had to get yourself promoted into a team leader style position where you code a little less, then into a project management position where you code only a little and then into an executive position where you don't code at all anymore. I'm convinced that that has led to the majority of the amnesia in our field.<p>We lost a generation of experience.