Being a Developer After 40 • Hacker News Board

Re: Being a Developer After 40

#411

Post by BurningFrog » Tue, Apr 26, 2016, 5:08 PM UTC

crpatino wrote: post #264

osweiller wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. I grew up in a small, very blue collar town (the sort that most people never escape). We lived on social assistance, at least until my mother killed herself and I went to live in foster homes. Eventually my father -- who later died from asbestos related cancer from his job -- let me move into a…

Privilege is multifactorial. There are such things as white privilege, and male privilege; but those are not the only (nor arguably, the most significant) privileges there are. Being "blue collar" and "from a small town" probably set you back in at least 3 or 4 different kinds of priviledges (as in economic, well learned, and urban/cosmopolitan). So, if you compare yourself to black women that had all advantages, yes…

This is a hopeless topic to discuss without a way to measure these factors.

The way it is discussed here, the privilege theory is unfalsifiable. You can always trot out more (unmeasured) privilege categories to explain any empirical data.

Like the saying goes, "He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense".

While I'm microranting, I'd also love to hear how big a factor privilege is compared to other factors for people's success in life.

Something like: Privilege: 40%, Effort: 30%, Luck: 30%, with a breakdown of each kind of privilege, and explanation of how it's measured. Give me that, and I'll start taking it seriously as a way to understand the world.

Re: Being a Developer After 40

#412

Post by sbov » Tue, Apr 26, 2016, 5:08 PM UTC

GrumpyYoungMan wrote: post #302

pc86 wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is probably an unpopular opinion here, but only a very small subset of developers need to design algorithms or even know any of them by heart. Disregarding a few years that was mostly WordPress consulting, my experience is largely enterprise C#. Lots of line of business applications, glorified CRUD apps, and some client work. Zero need for any ability to write a BST or radix sort. If you're working for SpaceX, o…

I'd agree with that. My impression is that the profession is bifurcating into two categories: 1) Programmers, who have solid coding skills that primarily work on building systems using existing modules and libraries. 2) Software engineers, who have algorithmic and systems level expertise along with advanced coding skills, and are capable of working on complex software such as operating systems, compilers, and other l…

IMHO software engineering is more about how you go about your work rather than what you work on. You can be an absolutely brilliant developer working on complex software but still not be a software engineer, yet still work alongside and be paid more highly than software engineers.

Re: Being a Developer After 40

#413

Post by maratd » Tue, Apr 26, 2016, 5:08 PM UTC

thedz wrote: post #305

maratd wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It jsut paints such a simplistic view of the world, not a real one, but one that is useful for rhetoric. Bingo. Race is just one facet anyway. We're all born with various advantages and disadvantages, none of which we have any control over. Just as an example, some people are better looking than others ... and those people tend to have an advantage, because they're better looking. They can get better jobs, better p…

> That's how life works. Stop whining. No, life isn't fair. Deal with it. I realize that the context is different in the U.S. vs the rest of the world, but would you say "life isn't fair, deal with it" to slaves in the South in the 1800s? Or to segregated blacks in the 1900s? Or to women who couldn't vote? Or, to use a more modern example, to Muslims who are facing prejudice and persecution because of the actions of…

> but would you say "life isn't fair, deal with it" to slaves in the South in the 1800s?

Yes, I would say exactly that.

I would tell them to accept their situation, not whine about it, then break free and run to the north. Many did just that.

When they got to the north, I would encourage them to work hard and make a better life for themselves through hard work. Many did just that.

Yes, they would need to work harder than insert privileged example here to have a good life. Because they're starting from zero. And that's fine. Because that's life.

Many of us start from zero or worse. Many of us were hurt or are being hurt by someone's unjust actions. That doesn't mean you try to rig the system.

We are born with thousands of disadvantages and thousands of advantages. You simply can't engineer a system that will compensate for all of that to create some sort of utopia. We tried that before. It didn't go so well.

Re: Being a Developer After 40

#414

Post by pc86 » Tue, Apr 26, 2016, 5:09 PM UTC

VLM wrote: post #274

pc86 wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're talking about the internet, a decade is a long time and an important distinction. We're not talking about a 32 year old dev. I mean hell I know plenty of early 30s folks. 40 years ago was 1976. We're talking about people who were born not too long after we landed on the moon (or even before). There's just not a lot of people that age who both went into programming and are still doing it, as opposed to manag…

Programming is a skilled labor, not a profession, in that you are "supposed" to do it for a couple years and then move on. Like teens used to work at McDonalds and give weird looks to the creepy 30 yr old guy still working fast food. When its not noteworthy for programmers to have an age distribution similar to the greater population, or for experience to be respected instead of being made fun of, then programming wi…

> Programming is a skilled labor

Please. That's borderline insulting to people who have to earn a living through actual, physical, labor.

Every programming job I've taken has started with the "Do you see your future self as a senior developer or a manager?" discussion. It's absolutely a viable career path to stay a developer, or at least it is now.

And there's the tired "lol these 30 year old kids don't know what they're doing I'm getting rich fixing their mistakes!!" tripe.

Re: Being a Developer After 40

#415

Post by pc86 » Tue, Apr 26, 2016, 5:11 PM UTC

jazzyk wrote: post #409

GrumpyYoungMan wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd agree with that. My impression is that the profession is bifurcating into two categories: 1) Programmers, who have solid coding skills that primarily work on building systems using existing modules and libraries. 2) Software engineers, who have algorithmic and systems level expertise along with advanced coding skills, and are capable of working on complex software such as operating systems, compilers, and other l…

>and all are highly skilled professionals Apparently (and unfairly), our society thinks otherwise - family doctors make $150K/year and neurosurgeons make $750K/year :-)

Outside of SV and NYC, $150k is more than enough for a single-income family of four to have a solidly upper-middle class lifestyle.

Re: Being a Developer After 40

#416

Post by DoofusOfDeath » Tue, Apr 26, 2016, 5:12 PM UTC

beat wrote: post #324

DoofusOfDeath wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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've heard this assertion made many times in recent years, but I don't recall any reasoned arguments for why the listener should accept it as a moral imperative. Since the assertion clearly isn't something we'll all…

The "reasonable argument" for privilege isn't that you grew up rich or whatever, but rather that there are negative assumptions made about others that are not made about you. For example, one of my best friends is a doctor, who moved into hospital administration, and from there into financial advising and investing. He's very wealthy and successful. And if he's pulled over by the cops, he has to worry that they'll as…

Thanks for giving examples of what you consider "white male privilege" to be.

In earlier comments I wasn't asserting that being a white male has no advantages in the software industry. I was curious about the author's reasoning as to why attempting to counteract it was a moral imperative for white males.

Re: Being a Developer After 40

#417

Post by JohnBooty » Tue, Apr 26, 2016, 5:14 PM UTC

kelukelugames wrote: post #254

gedy wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you know what? We're doing it wrong. How about you just call it "privilege" and leave it at that? This skin color labelling is pointless in the context of real privilege. A "woman of color" who grew up with servants in her birth country, went to private schools, top colleges, etc has a better chance at the C-suite than a Eastern European "white guy" who grew up poor and went to state schools etc.

Just like a white man can suffer from socio-economic disadvantages, a woman of color can benefit from class privilege. Who do you think it's going to have an easier life? Obama's daughters or some boys from the Appalachia region? It's unfair to discuss gender and race without considering class. It is also unfair to claim disadvantage in one without acknowledging benefits from the other two. This is also the biggest c…

   > It's unfair to discuss gender and race without considering class.

Think about the practical consequences of what you're saying.

Having a discussion about gender, race, class, etc. alone is challenging enough. Do you really want to say that we shouldn't discuss any of these issues unless we agree to simultaneously discuss all of them? What about all of the other factors that can also lead to inequality?

Does that seem realistic?

Class is an extremely pervasive factor, yes, but I don't believe that talking about other issues amounts to ignoring class divides, any more than discussing diabetes amounts to ignoring cancer.

Re: Being a Developer After 40

#418

Post by cname » Tue, Apr 26, 2016, 5:14 PM UTC

nucleardonuts wrote: post #224

I grow weary of hearing about "white privilege". I likewise grow weary of any of today's politically correct messages: women in combat, bathroom bills, work quotas, transvestite rights. It's all BS. I grew up a military brat. We didn't have a lot of money. I wore hand-me-downs, had iron-on patches on my knees. My family could not afford to send me to college, so I served in the military to get the GI Bill and worked…

> No one should be given a free ride because they are [X, Y, or Z] ...

Is that stated in the article somewhere? I'm pretty sure it's not. It also doesn't say anything about "handouts". It only says that certain people have an obligation to recognize their advantages and to make some attempt at improving things. That's quite a bit different than suggesting anyone should get a free ride.

Re: Being a Developer After 40

#419

Post by lsc » Tue, Apr 26, 2016, 5:14 PM UTC

manishsharan wrote: post #177

As a developer over 40, my biggest challenge is actually that the management has come to expect weekend work and late nights as the norm. As someone with a family , I can't put in those hours every day and every weekend. Single programmers who can put in those kind of hours are rewarded and those who cant are singled out for ridicule or "performance concern chats with manager". Projects have gone agile and they have…

>As a developer over 40, my biggest challenge is actually that the management has come to expect weekend work and late nights as the norm.

my experience is that this isn't the case, at least not where I am. Last place I was at, the guy who came in weekends was the first of us to be let go. (granted, the first guy to get promoted to direct-hire status also worked more hours than average, but he didn't come in weekends, and he certainly put in way fewer hours in the office than the guy who was let go first.)

There is quite often a correlation between my perception of a person not being very effective and staying super late.

>what I am pointing out is that enterprise s/w development process is based on the fundamental principle of getting barely skilled people who can put in the hours and keep their mouth shut. But these jobs pay a lot more than startup jobs and have a lot more security.

Eh, that's kind of the space I am in right now, only I'm more ops than dev (nearly every job is a mixture of both, most are tilted one way or the other.I am maybe 1/3rd dev, 2/3rds operations, my title is 'SysAdmin' at the moment)

The thing is about the corporate keyword jobs? You are right that they are looking for replaceable cogs, and it usually pays better than startup work, but it is very 'easy come, easy go' - expectations of contractors are super low, and contractor interviews are super short, so while you are very replaceable, so are they.

Where I am, in silicon valley, direct hire jobs at the places where you'd get those easy contractor gigs are kind of a different animal. They pay even more, really by quite a lot, and getting them is a combination of passing a bunch of IQ-test like puzzles and complex social signaling. Now, most of the people I know with those jobs are actually pretty good, so maybe the sorting process is better than I think? My problem is that first, I barely qualify, IQ wise, at least for the best of those companies, and then I am, well, I kind of am a capitalist, and part of the complex social signaling is pretending that you really want to be part of that advertising collective, which is super difficult for me, personally. I mean, I don't mind selling my sword to an advertising collective, but I am not the sort to 'drink the kool-aid' - Advertising is not making the world a better place, and I know that them hiring me is a transactional sort of thing. I'm not joining a collective, and I have difficulty pretending it's a collective.

Re: Being a Developer After 40

#420

Post by JohnBooty » Tue, Apr 26, 2016, 5:18 PM UTC

gedy wrote: post #238

JohnBooty wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> you know what? We're doing it wrong. How about you just call it "privilege" and leave it at that? This skin color labelling is pointless in the context of real privilege. A "woman of color" who grew up with servants in her birth country, went to private schools, top colleges, etc has a better chance at the C-suite than a Eastern European "white guy" who grew up poor and went to state schools etc.

Your example is correct of course.

However, please understand: whether it needs a new name or not (I suspect it does) the concept of "white privilege" does not mean "all white people automatically have it easier than all black people." No conflict there.