Well you've got me beat anyway :). My hat's off to you. I started as a hobby in 1975 on an HP3000 mainframe, aged 15, and landed my first professional gig in 1987.
Ask HN: Am I the longest-serving programmer – 57 years and counting?
381–390 of 555 posts
Re: Ask HN: Am I the longest-serving programmer – 57 years and counting?
#382Please someone make a movie about Highlander programmers!
Re: Ask HN: Am I the longest-serving programmer – 57 years and counting?
#383Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or, more optimistically, if you love what you do you'll never work a day in your life. I love programming too and have no plans on stopping either. And there's nothing wrong with that.
Continuing programming != continuing being an employee, working for others.
Some types of work are only feasible to do when working for others.
For example, of you love rocket science and working on rockets, you're probably better off working for NASA or SpaceX.
Re: Ask HN: Am I the longest-serving programmer – 57 years and counting?
#384I am 80 years old and still working full time in IT. Although I evolved from pure programming to project management and business analysis the past few years. Originally started out working at Cape Canaveral as a radar and telemetry engineer and moved into programming after I left there. Whenever I interview, I completely ignore the age issue. If the interviewer is to dumb to recognize the value of my knowledge and ex…
Why are you not yet retired? I can think of few strong reasons, but I would love to hear from you. (I started programming at 8, I’m 41 and I have no plans of stopping )
Not retired because I don't want to live on social security alone. That would be a bummer.
Re: Ask HN: Am I the longest-serving programmer – 57 years and counting?
#385Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm so near sighted, I wouldn't make it out the door without my glasses :-) Have you tried the 'blue blocker' type lenses? If so, how do you like them ?
Not the person you're replying to, but I've had the blue-blocker (I think Costco calls them 'computer lenses' confusingly). They do shift colours towards the yellow range, but not as much as the computer "night shift" (so that the rest of the world looks normal) :) I've found that I can sit at my computer for longer, compared to when I didn't have blue-blocking lenses. It's probably just personal preference :) I'm al…
I've heard that blocking blue light can help you sleep better...And I'm usually on the computer before bed. Have you noticed any difference w.r.t sleep ?
Thanks!
Re: Ask HN: Am I the longest-serving programmer – 57 years and counting?
#386Re: Ask HN: Am I the longest-serving programmer – 57 years and counting?
#387Earlier quoted context omitted.
Huh, what do you know. Still, this is unforgivable in my book: [] + {} == "[object Object]" {} + [] == 0
For the first, I frequently (for my own projects) change the Array prototype to have Array.prototype.toString = function () { return '[' + this.join(', ') + ']'; }; It would be convenient if Object.prototype.toString by default threw an exception, since the default breaks the embedding rule I described. The second example is misleading, and it has nothing to do with the rules for addition: the {} at the beginning of…
I didn't realise about the second one. Thanks!
Re: Ask HN: Am I the longest-serving programmer – 57 years and counting?
#388Earlier quoted context omitted.
Margaret Hamilton is an inspiration, but is she actually still working at age 83? I can't find anything that would indicate she is. For something like the "longest-working programmer" I'd expect them to have been actually "work"-working during that time. And I think I'd classify Knuth as the slightly different "longest working computer scientist". He's known for his quote "Beware of bugs in the above code; I have onl…
She's the CEO of Hamilton Technologies: http://www.htius.com/
“The Universal Systems Language (USL) is based on a preventive, development-before-the-fact philosophy that does not allow errors in, in the first place.”
Funny that there’s an error in that sentence.
Re: Ask HN: Am I the longest-serving programmer – 57 years and counting?
#389Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why are you not yet retired? I can think of few strong reasons, but I would love to hear from you. (I started programming at 8, I’m 41 and I have no plans of stopping )
Not retired because I don't want to live on social security alone. That would be a bummer.
What about retirement savings? If you had funded your 401(k) and IRAs with an engineer's salary for this many years you should have many millions to live off of.
Re: Ask HN: Am I the longest-serving programmer – 57 years and counting?
#390I am 80 years old and still working full time in IT. Although I evolved from pure programming to project management and business analysis the past few years. Originally started out working at Cape Canaveral as a radar and telemetry engineer and moved into programming after I left there. Whenever I interview, I completely ignore the age issue. If the interviewer is to dumb to recognize the value of my knowledge and ex…
Is it true that everyone in the media during your childhood spoke in a nasally accent?