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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?

#511

Post by mikewang »

specialist wrote: post #507

An interview with you would be fantastic. Do any of the computer museums do that? My mom used to interview people, mostly seniors, to capture oral traditions, get first hand accounts. I think the process she used was called "oral history". A simple format that any one could use to do their own interviews. She was long time volunteer for our local Swede-Finn historical org. She figured out how to do this once her pare…

That sounds great. People just is like the cassette/volumes, recording history, which is more vivid.

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

#512

Post by mikewang »

genedangelo wrote: post #7
phillipseamore wrote: post #5

I'm happy to see that you've kept up with new fields and changes in the industry. I've worked with several older programmers and they've usually been very set in their ways and shown little interest in developing new skills.

I know what you mean. Many of my contemporaries never got past the mainframes. I'll have to admit that it took me a little while to accept the PC to be more than any intelligent terminal. I was lucky in that I worked for Digital Equipment Corporation from 1976 to 1982 - they pioneered distributed computing.

The first time I programed in mainframe, I suffered a lot. I am young. We young people at least myself is people programming from top to down, but you guys, old programmer programed from down to top. I mean from low level to high level of computer. Early days, people would have to learn hardware a lot to program. This is my impression.

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

#513

Post by jki275 »

manish_gill wrote: post #319
jkingsbery wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How did you go about getting your phd? Did you take a break from paid work to go to school? Did you work on your thesis nights/ weekends? Do you feel like you learned from your advisors, some if whom I'd imagine were younger than you? Did you study an area related to your work at the time? Or did you use it to learn a new area?

+1 I'm deeply interested. Been thinking a lot about doing a Masters in AI/ML but I'd rather not stop working. Been considering part time masters programs but finding them is tricky.

GA Tech OMSCS is tailor made for you...

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

#514

Post by elwell »

geophile wrote: post #325

Being 63, I don't get to say this very often: I am one of the youngest people in this conversation. Delighted to read these stories about even-older-than-me old-timers. Even though I am a relative spring chicken, I'll list my old-timey computing experiences: - Started programming on programmable Wang and Monroe calculators. - PDP-8m in high school. 12k 12-bit words for four terminals running Basic. By special arrange…

> Picked up Emacs in 1985 and now it's in my fingertips.

I don't think this means the dreaded 'emacs pinky'...

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

#515

Post by michaelcampbell »

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #388
mbrock wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Which is? The 2 "in"'s seem correct to me.

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

#516

Post by observr9 »

For those in the same boat, any tips you can provide to overcome the commonly cited barriers?

For example: maintaining the required mental agility needed to do the job, learning new technologies that come and go, overcoming relevant biases, staying relevant as "less experienced" workers seem sufficient to do the same job, etc.

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

#518

Post by headmelted »

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…

"I've forgotten more than you'll ever learn, but I still remember most of it" seems like an appropriate response if the question is ever raised.

Kudos to you for not losing your passion for the job!

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

#519

Post by elwell »

idolaspecus wrote: post #111

My grandpa is ~75, started programming professionally in his early 20s, and currently works as an engineer for the University of Utah, so my hunch is that there’s more people with 50+ years of software engineering experience than you might at first suspect. Either that or I just doxxed myself ;)

> Either that or I just doxxed myself ;)

I wager, everything will be retroactively doxxed in about 20 years or so...

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

#520

Post by ragnese »

chrisseaton wrote: post #419
bregma wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be very curious too. My son's university is proposing to do the next year (mostly) remote, which sounds like a perfect way for me to go back for a couple of classes too. I always wanted more letters after my name.

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

I'm almost positive that was tongue-in-cheek.
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