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Ask HN: Am I the longest-serving programmer – 57 years and counting?

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Re: Ask HN: Am I the longest-serving programmer – 57 years and counting?

#431

Post by FearNotDaniel »

neilwilson wrote: post #116

At 38 years and a graduate of the ZX81 school of programming I am but a mere whippersnapper. But I look forward to the day when I have accumulated sufficient experience to truly understand Lisp. May the code by with you. Always.

For a moment there I thought you meant you were 38 years old, meaning you would have been tapping on that membrane keyboard in your nappies :-) But yeah, happy days. My school had a couple of ZX81s and an Apple ][ which got me started until the BBC Micro came out and we got a ZX Spectrum at home.

Re: Ask HN: Am I the longest-serving programmer – 57 years and counting?

#432

Post by bazza451 »

mindentropy wrote: post #185
bazza451 wrote: post #164

This made my day, absolutely wonderful achievement! Especially the area that you’re now in...it’s really not an easy task to retrain yourself for ML. I’m 12 years in professionally and still loving every second of it! Currently been slugging out Leetcode problems all hours of the day to try and get myself to an org with a proper engineering track. So maybe further down the line I still might be able to solve computer…

Funny. I too with 14 years also with a lot of love for programming want to have a career like him. Like you I too am leetcoding so that I can get into a proper engineering company where I will not be discriminated based on age. Hope we both will do the same as what the OP did.

Best of luck to you when you do the interviews! Everything just takes time and practice :)

Re: Ask HN: Am I the longest-serving programmer – 57 years and counting?

#433

Post by Cyph0n »

FearNotDaniel wrote: post #426
chrisseaton wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I always wanted more letters after my name. This is a really bad reason to do a degree, if you want my unsolicited opinion.

That depends a lot on where you live. In Austria, for example, where I lived for several years, academic titles carry a strong social cachet and are used absolutely everywhere - on your credit card, bills from the city council for cleaning out your bins etc. People with more than one PhD will be addressed as Dr Dr Firstname Surname, someone with a regular engineering degree is allowed to refer to themselves as Ing. S…

> Dr Dr Firstname

Never seen that one before!

Re: Ask HN: Am I the longest-serving programmer – 57 years and counting?

#434

Post by jackcosgrove »

Cyph0n wrote: post #433
FearNotDaniel wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That depends a lot on where you live. In Austria, for example, where I lived for several years, academic titles carry a strong social cachet and are used absolutely everywhere - on your credit card, bills from the city council for cleaning out your bins etc. People with more than one PhD will be addressed as Dr Dr Firstname Surname, someone with a regular engineering degree is allowed to refer to themselves as Ing. S…

> Dr Dr Firstname Never seen that one before!

Who knew that Thompson Twins song was really about a highly educated Austrian.

Re: Ask HN: Am I the longest-serving programmer – 57 years and counting?

#435

Post by giardini »

SiVal wrote: post #394
ecpottinger wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AAARRHHH! A friend has been telling me about her dad, he was full of life and when he came up to my cabin he was a whirlwind of activity. But after they sold the house (he loved gardening) and moved into a condo where there is little to do she can see him going downhill month by month. Before he had a purpose in his life (gardening and house maintenance), now he just has the sit around or go on bike trips. It is a sh…

It sounds as though your friend urgently needs to investigate service opportunities for her dad. Sometimes when people discover how unexpectedly useful they are to others, it's like a psychological vitamin that was missing.

This.

Many retired people need help with what others consider everyday (monthly, yearly) tasks: changing filters, fixing a door, light bulbs, or minor electrical fixture/switch/appliance repair, stopping ants entering the building, a leak in the ceiling, etc. Fixing PC problems counts too.

Anyone who has owned and maintained a home is capable of doing these things provided they're in good health. I'm always happy to help my retired neighbors with their little problems, perhaps b/c I don't have enough of them and they are an interesting distraction, as well as making me feel helpful.

Re: Ask HN: Am I the longest-serving programmer – 57 years and counting?

#436

Post by codethief »

FearNotDaniel wrote: post #420

Goals! As a mere 49-year-old who learned to code 38 years ago and only has 15 years' professional experience, it pisses me off to hear people whining about ageism in tech; I'm sure certain sectors of the hotshot startup world are biased towards "bright young things" but as far as I can tell there are many orgs that have a place for grizzled greybeards and I certainly don't plan to ever retire. What would I do? I'm st…

Could elaborate a bit on what got you into the IT industry at age 34 and what you were doing before that? How easy/difficult was it for you to find a good, well-paying job and build a career?

> I'm sure certain sectors of the hotshot startup world are biased towards "bright young things" but as far as I can tell there are many orgs that have a place for grizzled greybeards

What kind of organizations are you referring to? / How would one go about finding organizations like these?

The reason I'm asking is that I'm in my late twenties and considering doing a PhD in mathematical physics before leaving academia for good and entering the IT industry. Like you, I started programming in my early teens and while I kept coding as a hobby and also worked as a part-time software engineer for a startup for ~1½ years, I obviously have much less professional experience under my belt than those "bright young minds" who enter the industry in their early twenties. So I'm somewhat afraid that it'll be even harder for me to enter the industry when I'm in my early/mid thirties than it is right now.

Re: Ask HN: Am I the longest-serving programmer – 57 years and counting?

#437

Post by giardini »

jlokier wrote: post #338
kshacker wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He wanted to share similar experience with the caveats up front. Concept of free country, free world, free internet :) I had similar reconnaissance but now I hesitate to share. But challenge accepted, worst case is downvotes :) 4 years back, maybe 5 I used to think this is how old age was (would not mention my age but it is younger than the main OP), body slowly unable to do what is used to be able to do. Then after…

> Then after 2 stents and change in lifestyle, I find I can do same or more than what I could do 5 years back, maybe a decade back. What kind of change in lifestyle made such a positive difference for you?

Yes, and was a woman involved?*-))

Re: Ask HN: Am I the longest-serving programmer – 57 years and counting?

#438

Post by Polylactic_acid »

bregma wrote: post #407
vecinu wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes. imagine if you retired you could turn to programming full time just for fun!

Thats my goal. All of the programming I enjoy doing has no clear way to monetize.

I'd love to spend months reverse engineering proprietary electronics and writing open source code / datasheets for them.

Re: Ask HN: Am I the longest-serving programmer – 57 years and counting?

#439

Post by Polylactic_acid »

paulcole wrote: post #328
Mary-Jane wrote: post #313

Earlier 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.

Programming is the thing you love the most and if it was 100% up to you what to do with your time you’d still do it? I mean I don’t hate my job but damn I’d just sit in front of the TV and go for walks if that was an option.

>I’d just sit in front of the TV and go for walks if that was an option.

Thats fun for the first week. The second week its depressing but you still do it. On the third week you will be picking up hobby projects and working on them just for fun.

Re: Ask HN: Am I the longest-serving programmer – 57 years and counting?

#440

Post by sbilstein »

fyfy18 wrote: post #229
pxsant wrote: post #212

I 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…

How do you find your brain works and how productive you are compared to say 20 years ago? My father is in his late 70s and gets quite tired during his day - I wonder if you keep working it keeps the brain more active. Also it must be weird going to a retirement party for someone who is 15 years younger than you :D

Took an interesting course on aging and the brain. Everyone suffers some degree of cognitive decline but it can vary wildly based on a number of circumstances to an almost negligible extent for lucky people. A lot of it is out of your control but high performing people who keep engaging their mind can compensate better for decline.

It’s also why leaving your job or moving to a place with less activity can accelerate decline. Unfortunately, brains are also very sensitive to depression at an advanced age (less blood flow among other things), so grief/loneliness etc can quite literally cause deterioration. Another reason IMO to make sure seniors can work if they want to.

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