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Not Just Any Old Geek

blog.oldgeekjobs.com

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161–170 of 305 posts

Re: Not Just Any Old Geek

#161

Post by smrtinsert »

dejv wrote: post #149

If you want long career in programming you should really do serious career planing during your 20s to make sure you check all important boxes: correct technologies, mix of different kind of companies, team sizes and roles. Otherwise you might get into complicated position down the road. I am in the early 30s and on top of my ability, but I don't see my future too bright from here. 10 years ago I make decision to do f…

"correct technologies". hah, good luck. if any of us had a crystal ball we would be billionaires, not still coding.

Re: Not Just Any Old Geek

#163

Post by hackaflocka »

Macuyiko wrote: post #31

Nice idea, but the site itself is clearly copied from https://weworkremotely.com/jobs/new -- even down to the segment headers. The only notable change is setting the font family to monospaced...

Makes sense. An advantage with us Old Geeks is we don't like to re-invent the wheel ;-)

Re: Not Just Any Old Geek

#164

Post by coldtea »

rubber_duck wrote: post #92
czep wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you were having cardiac surgery, would you prefer your surgeon to be a year out of med school having done the operation oh 3 or 4 times, or the proverbial graybeard who has done it a thousand times? If you were wrongly convicted and awaiting a death sentence, would you pick a 22 year old attorney fresh from law school to defend you? If you have a field full of tomatoes that needs picking, do you save a few dollars…

Umm the more comparable parable would be "or the proverbial graybeard who has done ~~it~~ kidney surgery a thousand times" The stuff you did in software 20 years ago has absolutely nothing to do with the stuff that's being done today. Like holly shit most people weren't even using source control back, unit testing and automated testing in general was SciFi, it was done by QA departments if you were big enough to do i…

>The stuff you did in software 20 years ago has absolutely nothing to do with the stuff that's being done today. Like holly shit most people weren't even using source control back, unit testing and automated testing in general was SciFi, it was done by QA departments if you were big enough to do it.

That stuff a competent graybeard knows already.

You don't think they disappeared in 1990 and re-appeared magically today, or that they didn't kept up with the times during their career, right?

In addition, they would know all the solid stuff -- the things programmers before the internet had to learn the hard way, and lots of today's dilettantes lack.

And you must be very young (20 something?) if you really believe that "the stuff you did in software 20 years ago has absolutely nothing to do with the stuff that's being done today". That's simply not true -- and triply not true for 15 years ago.

Re: Not Just Any Old Geek

#165

Post by ap22213 »

daemonk wrote: post #15

I am getting to old geek status myself. From a more cynical perspective, I am not sure if we can compete with early twenty-somethings who are unjaded and buy into the silicon valley mystique. They are willing to work 12 hour days and still do the faux-japanese salarymen afterwork socializing that supposedly builds "culture". Older geeks don't buy into this ping-pong table propaganda. Tech companies probably won't be…

My experience is that younger developers take on way too much risk. It's either because they don't know how to manage risk, or they just get a rush from it. Unfortunately, there's a lot of survivorship bias that makes it seem that that is the way to go.

Back in the day, it was well known that spending more time in the inception and elaboration phases would make construction much more cost effective. It was also known that developer efficiency decreased significantly after a certain threshold of hours worked. Maybe things have changed - I don't know. It sure feels like well analyzed requirements and well designed architectures yield much better products. And, more experienced developers _should be_ better at those things, on average.

I wish there was more data data on the subject - I need to start reading more research coming out of the ACM SIG.

Re: Not Just Any Old Geek

#166

Post by emodendroket »

rubber_duck wrote: post #139
emodendroket wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most programs don't really use algorithms or data structures that were discovered much later than the '70s. This idea that old experience is worthless because we're using different libraries now strikes me as altogether wrongheaded.

The stuff you learned in your CS course is still just as relevant as it was 20 years ago. The things you did in your development career are nowhere near so. Did you use SCM, automated testing and design patterns 20 years ago ? If yes do you think this was the norm in the industry ? I'm not saying those things are the only relevant things, I'm just pointing out the obvious examples of how much things have changed sinc…

I was in high school and didn't know the first thing about programming 20 years ago. But it seems to me that "design patterns," SCM, and automated testing aren't the hard part of this discipline.

Re: Not Just Any Old Geek

#167

Post by dejv »

dvirsky wrote: post #150
dejv wrote: post #149

If you want long career in programming you should really do serious career planing during your 20s to make sure you check all important boxes: correct technologies, mix of different kind of companies, team sizes and roles. Otherwise you might get into complicated position down the road. I am in the early 30s and on top of my ability, but I don't see my future too bright from here. 10 years ago I make decision to do f…

What makes you think your stream will dry out? Why wouldn't you be still doing this 10-20 years from now?

Who knows, my main income streams are developing Delphi 5 applications (dead market), iPhone apps (market is changing and I see much less new gigs for solo developers) and Rails apps.

Low hanging fruits seems to be picked and each new app needs to be much better, which require bigger teams.

Re: Not Just Any Old Geek

#168

Post by bitwize »

crdoconnor wrote: post #56
jwr wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't worry. We can actually Get Stuff Done, which at the end of the day is what really counts. Inexperienced young programmers working 2x the hours do not necessarily produce Output That Works (I know, I've been one myself). Sure, not every company will realize that, but then again, you don't necessarily want to work for every ping-pong table company, either. Cultural fit and all that.

>I wouldn't worry. We can actually Get Stuff Done, which at the end of the day is what really counts. This is a myth. It doesn't count for that much. Programmer productivity cannot be effectively measured even by other programmers and certainly can't be measured by non-technical managers. The fact that you are doing something can be easily verified. The fact that you are doing it effectively at an appropriate speed a…

If you are correctly following an Agile process such as Scrum, the productivity of each team member can indeed be quantified. You may think it's pure bullshit numbers, but the ratio of story points to hours worked tends to stabilize over time and give management an idea of how productive you really are.

Re: Not Just Any Old Geek

#169

Post by cyberferret »

jkot wrote: post #7

> I’ve published a dozen articles ... build software with thousands of paying customers. ... work on open source Python. ... read almost 40 business books, and I live and breathe HackerNews. Why not start your own business or become CTO? Why work for someone less experienced?

Not as easy as it sounds. I am 49, and been programming for over 30 years now. I've just written a few SaaS apps and trying to get them to a level where they can earn me enough money for my wife and I to semi retire and work from anywhere.

However, getting VCs and other investors to take an interest is proving very difficult. As soon as I say that I am (a) a single founder and (b) just shy of my 50th birthday, I never hear back from them. It seems that 3 decades of experience and running my own software development & consulting company writing apps for small business just isn't as cool as a group of young twenty somethings coming up with an esoteric idea out of left field that may or may not be profitable?!?

Re: Not Just Any Old Geek

#170

Post by hanginghyena »

Another old geezer here (43!); had a good run in my twenties and wound up in technical management a few years ago.

A couple of tips:

- The "hands on" technical skills that launched your career have capped (top salary) and declining value

- If you take time to learn / think about how the underlying technology works (vs. just cut / paste / edit code), you can master related new technologies faster than the average bear.

- It is also worth noting that technical challenges tend to repeat every couple of generations; the software developer community is operating within the same set of fundamental constraints (coder time, CPU speed, network, data, etc.), the main thing that changes is which constraint matters. And they repeat: at some point, CPU will be the constraint again and all ninja coder tricks of my twenties will matter again.

- Architecture, process design, and people herding skills only grow with time; 80% of my value as a manager consists of making unnecessary work go away (without drama). I am much better at using these skills at 42 than I was at 24.

- If you ever see an opportunity to build a side project that could turn into a business, take it. Even if you don't replace your income, this gives you additional control over the direction of your late career and skills you acquire. Note that I said side project and not startup; the intent to get more control over your direction without walking away from your day job and associated income / benefits.

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