Stairway To Heav... Hell

Although we all agree that technology is advancing exponentially, rarely we ask ourselves what effect does that have on our Padawans - junior developers of whom we expect, often unrealistically, to become Jedi on very short notice and master technologies that their Masters had decades to learn. Java is turning 20 - how much we, who have been learning it slowly from version 1.0, can expect foreknowledge from today's generation of fresh developers who back then were learning - how to talk.