On the benefits of humanities in software engineering

I studied modern languages in undergraduate and later taught myself programming. Apart from a general “learning how to learn” and maybe a familiarity with language manipulation, it wasn’t a very useful precursor to programming.

With that said, the points listed at the bottom resonated with me. So few working developers seem to have an interest in the history of their craft. Even when talking solely about those who spend their spare time learning about programming and CS.

I love projects like The Daily Paper or Ideas That Created the Future because they give this context.

We operate pretty much exclusively in this sort of bow wave of current best practice and tooling. This is why eg JavaScript works continually reinvents the wheel.

In literature this would be inconceivable because you study the major authors who define the context in which more modern authors write (whether they accept it or not).

Am I expecting too much from working devs (again I mean the motivated ones)? Do computer science degrees usually cover the history well? Maybe CS is just too young to have a canon?