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Being a Developer After 40

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Re: Being a Developer After 40

#381

Post by [deleted] »

JohnBooty wrote: post #149
ManlyBread wrote: post #105

The article was pretty good until this part. >If you are a white male remember all the privilege you have enjoyed since birth just because you were born that way. It is your responsibility to change the industry and its bias towards more inclusion. I'm from an Eastern Europe and my family never was rich, I had to put in a tremendous effort to even get into the industry. Assuming I got an easy ride simply because I'm…

I'm from an Eastern Europe and my family never was rich, I had to put in a tremendous effort to even get into the industry. Assuming I got an easy ride simply because I'm white is a pretty racist statement I was about to patiently type out another "hey, you did work hard and you did earn your success - 'white privilege' doesn't mean things were handed to you easily; it means that even though your life has been hard y…

[deleted]

Re: Being a Developer After 40

#382

Post by njharman »

ManlyBread wrote: post #105

The article was pretty good until this part. >If you are a white male remember all the privilege you have enjoyed since birth just because you were born that way. It is your responsibility to change the industry and its bias towards more inclusion. I'm from an Eastern Europe and my family never was rich, I had to put in a tremendous effort to even get into the industry. Assuming I got an easy ride simply because I'm…

Are there lots of females in the industry where you are? I wouldn't be surprised if there were way more than in west. It seems (from my limited outsider view) that communism/socialism was much more egalitarian regarding gender and some of that carries over post USSR.

Are there lots of ethnic minorities in the industry where you are?

Being a white male doesn't mean it was easy for you or you auto-success. It means it was easier for you compared to non-ethic majority, non-males.

source: I am 45 yr old white male

Re: Being a Developer After 40

#383

Post by fefifofu »

votr wrote: post #157
tluyben2 wrote: post #14

I'm 41 and a dev (and manager and bunch of other roles when needed, but most my days are spent with software/hardware dev) and sure, it's all true what this article says, but there is no real personal advice there besides, as others said, just 'don't do everything, but do everything'. So some unasked advice from a 40+ then which I wish I was told when I was 17 or something: a) believe in yourself; learn from others,…

I'm 36 and really want to develop (c). I have decent social skills but I have no idea how to find non-coders to mingle with. Where does one start? Meetup groups? Cycling groups? Creating art and showing it?

I find sports are the best for meeting people and actually building a relationship. In my experience, floor hockey, slow pitch, hiking and cycling were good. Oddly, running groups were not. Also better results if it is a mix of men and women.

I think bringing a friend is essential. It reduces the awkward times when you don't know anybody. In addition, it doubles the chance of meeting people because your friend meets people too. A wing men are helpful :)

Art is solitary.

When I go to planned meetups for drinks, it is just small talk or ulterior motives (ie. they are looking for work).

Re: Being a Developer After 40

#384

Post by iLemming »

you know what? f... you people. I was hoping to know your opinions about technological choices and things you think would be relevant 20 years from now. And what do I get? 40 f...ing pages of gender and race inequality crap. The article is not about that, damn it!

Re: Being a Developer After 40

#385

Post by iLemming »

you know what? f... you people. I was hoping to know your opinions about technological choices and things you think would be relevant 20 years from now. And what do I get? 40 f...ing pages of gender and race inequality crap. The article is not about that, damn it!

Re: Being a Developer After 40

#386

Post by BurningFrog »

wrsh07 wrote: post #364
Domenic_S wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only facet that matters, then? Or, combined with gender the only facets that matter or let you be a part of the discussion? I've been told off + blocked on twitter for chiming in about something I have intimate personal experience with, because white male. Or the semi-famous video "you're a WHITE MALE!" (language warning) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0diJNybk0Mw

Of course it's not the only facet that matters. And I think that minorities want white males to be a part of the discussion about race. However, oftentimes white males say the same exact things. You can kind of enumerate them, "Not all white males," "White people can be poor," "Hey, you're black, can you explain...?" etc. Many answers to these questions can be found here: http://theteej.tumblr.com/post/122334039549/h…

> Finally, I'll reference John Green and say that if you're doing something that multiple people tell you is offensive or bothersome: Stop doing it.

Does that include people telling you Social Justice rhetoric is offensive or bothersome?

Re: Being a Developer After 40

#387

Post by mindcrime »

dfox wrote: post #355
mindcrime wrote: post #250

Being a 40+ developer myself, I find myself largely agreeing with this post. I guess I could quibble over some small details, but by and large, I think the author is spot on. The one thing I'll add to this, is to say that, for devs like us, things like Coursera, Udacity, EdX, etc. are really valuable. When you're a mid-career professional who already has strong technical chops in at least one area, "on demand educati…

For tech things I would say that just reading the documentation (or source if there isn't any useful documentation) is preferable to any online courses. On my first meaningfully paid job, first actually useful thing I did was that I went into corporate archives and found documentation for Oracle 7i and Microstation 95 which I was supposed to be using. Somehow nobody else there even thought of reading the docs. (the f…

For tech things I would say that just reading the documentation (or source if there isn't any useful documentation) is preferable to any online courses.

I'm a big fan of the "teach yourself by reading the docs" thing and I've done a lot of that in my career. But since I started doing a lot of these online courses, I've found that they can be very beneficial. Having a little bit of structure around the learning process, having "classmates" to discuss with, etc. have helped me as I've been (for example) learning R. Now, could I learn R by just reading books, tutorials, and experimenting on my own? Sure, of course. But the courses are pretty cheap, add a little bit of rigor to the process, and come with a minor credential from a well known / highly regarded university (Johns Hopkins, specifically). All in all, I've found that this approach works really well.

Just to share an example of one regard in which the online classes have had value above and beyond me simply doing it entirely on my own... The "R ecosystem" has a LOT of stuff in it. If I just started playing around with R, I'd have little clue which libraries and other tools to try out. But the courses I've done so far have guided me towards learning things like ggplot, dplyr, knitr, etc. Knitr in particular turns out to be really cool, and I'm glad I discovered it... but I don't think it's something I would have gone looking for on my own. Maybe I would still have found it eventually anyway, but as it stands, I feel like the course approach guided me in some useful directions early on.

YMMV, of course.

Re: Being a Developer After 40

#388

Post by alistproducer2 »

JohnBooty wrote: post #149
ManlyBread wrote: post #105

The article was pretty good until this part. >If you are a white male remember all the privilege you have enjoyed since birth just because you were born that way. It is your responsibility to change the industry and its bias towards more inclusion. I'm from an Eastern Europe and my family never was rich, I had to put in a tremendous effort to even get into the industry. Assuming I got an easy ride simply because I'm…

I'm from an Eastern Europe and my family never was rich, I had to put in a tremendous effort to even get into the industry. Assuming I got an easy ride simply because I'm white is a pretty racist statement I was about to patiently type out another "hey, you did work hard and you did earn your success - 'white privilege' doesn't mean things were handed to you easily; it means that even though your life has been hard y…

I agree. I support most, if not all, the racial justice initiatives of the last 10 years, but the left is in need of better intellectuals and leaders. The language and tenor of much of the discussion is unhelpful in gaining supporters. I rant all the time that it's really a shame that BLM never seems to protest or take issue with police shooting of non-black folks. If the goal was to win, and not just to make a point, we should come up with better language and strategy.

Re: Being a Developer After 40

#390

Post by ManlyBread »

JohnBooty wrote: post #149
ManlyBread wrote: post #105

The article was pretty good until this part. >If you are a white male remember all the privilege you have enjoyed since birth just because you were born that way. It is your responsibility to change the industry and its bias towards more inclusion. I'm from an Eastern Europe and my family never was rich, I had to put in a tremendous effort to even get into the industry. Assuming I got an easy ride simply because I'm…

I'm from an Eastern Europe and my family never was rich, I had to put in a tremendous effort to even get into the industry. Assuming I got an easy ride simply because I'm white is a pretty racist statement I was about to patiently type out another "hey, you did work hard and you did earn your success - 'white privilege' doesn't mean things were handed to you easily; it means that even though your life has been hard y…

>We need better language.

No, you need better arguments, you can start with the ones where there's no assumption that racism towards certain groups is okay.

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