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Not Just Any Old Geek

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Re: Not Just Any Old Geek

#181

Post by rubber_duck »

coldtea wrote: post #164
rubber_duck wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 tod…

I mean if you were a good dev in the 90s chances are right now you're in some senior architect/management/consultant position. If you're competing for the same jobs as 20 something devs then you've probably screwed up somewhere in your career.

I started programming in late 90s but not professionally until 2006 I think, this was probably the late phase of transition to internet as a dominant factor in computing - so I think it gave me enough perspective as to how things changed, plus talking to older developers, reading stuff online and on the forums I know we've come a loong way as an industry.

Re: Not Just Any Old Geek

#182

Post by dejv »

dvirsky wrote: post #178
dejv wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You should definitely invest in your skill set then, and learn new technologies if you want to stay in the game - but age is not the critical factor here. Perhaps you've lost your passion? I'm about a decade older than you and I'm still continuously working on evolving my skills and learning new languages and technologies. I do it primarily because it excites me, and as an added bonus it keeps me ahead in the game :)…

Well, that was mostly point for others to consider better planing of their career.

Personally, I am not going to be developer for much longer (unless some catastrophe happens). Income from my winery, various projects, rental properties and other businesses will soon replace my income from computer programming.

Re: Not Just Any Old Geek

#184

Post by lubonay »

mark_l_watson wrote: post #108
tome wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am finishing up a Haskell book I'm really interested to hear that! Have you announced this at all or written anything about it?

https://leanpub.com/haskell-cookbook

Hey, I noticed a couple of things you might wanna improve in your leanpub profile page: 1. The first sentence has the word "Consultant" twice in a row 2. The first paragraph mixes first and third person, i.e. "Mark Watson is an awesome programmer. I use a bunch of techs" 3. The profile pic is stretched horizontally

Re: Not Just Any Old Geek

#185

Post by Practicality »

kbart wrote: post #41
Jean-Philipe wrote: post #16

I didn't feel this kind of bias here in Berlin. When founding FitAnalytics.com, we were three young students fresh from university, but all of us highly appreciated more senior programmers (40+) joining the team. Even if their language didn't fit our stack (C++ for a JS position), my experience was extremely positive, feeling that some programmers just get better with age, no matter the language du jour. Regarding pa…

I think this young programmers cult is more US centric problem. Or should I say SV centric problem. I didn't notice such widespread age discrimination in Europe. I'm not that old yet (30), but I've worked with many older programmer/engineers (40+) in several companies and most of them were highly respected, well-paid and got tons of other job offers. Sure, if you are stuck in eighties programming with Assembler only…

Yeah, I am not having any trouble with it outside of SV. Employers see 17 years of experience and trip over themselves to hire me (and my peers, some of whom are older).

The just-out-of-college kids can build you a website, sure, but they don't get the fun (or well paying) jobs.

Re: Not Just Any Old Geek

#186

Post by dvirsky »

dejv wrote: post #182
dvirsky wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should definitely invest in your skill set then, and learn new technologies if you want to stay in the game - but age is not the critical factor here. Perhaps you've lost your passion? I'm about a decade older than you and I'm still continuously working on evolving my skills and learning new languages and technologies. I do it primarily because it excites me, and as an added bonus it keeps me ahead in the game :)…

Well, that was mostly point for others to consider better planing of their career. Personally, I am not going to be developer for much longer (unless some catastrophe happens). Income from my winery, various projects, rental properties and other businesses will soon replace my income from computer programming.

Oh, I read it as "plan you career as programmers" :)

Good to hear you're finding other passions. Software is my second career BTW, I only started professionally at 29 (I've been programming since age 10).

I know what being trapped in a job you lost your passion for, and can't get out of, feels like. And I feel very blessed that I found my professional path. I do know that it's not for everyone.

Re: Not Just Any Old Geek

#187

Post by Gracana »

czep wrote: post #85
uola wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, even as I'm getting older, this isn't at all obvious to me. Someone with five years solid experience with web development might very well be far more effective than someone with twenty years experience of working in corners of large companies with various technologies, especially when you consider the expected salary. I think it good that people are talking about these things, but sometime it seem like peop…

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…

The vast majority of software engineering work does not have the same rigor that other fields of engineering do. Standards, safety, inspection, accountability, documentation, testing, certification, etc... many other fields focus on these things, but in software it's pretty much "anything goes so long as we make money." The trick to making companies value good engineers is getting them to value good engineering.

Re: Not Just Any Old Geek

#188

Post by amcrouch »

amyjess wrote: post #129
other_herbert wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is true of a lot of devs... I have seen friends who who have gone into management because they didn't really love coding.. I've been doing this stuff since I was 9 and don't ever want to stop

Yep. I know a guy who, in his late '20s, decided that he wasn't going to be able to keep up as a coder in the long run, so he jumped to management. As long as I've known him, he's always been the kind of person who cares more about maximizing how much money he makes than any kind of job satisfaction.

Not all of us feel like that.

I actual care more about the product and how it's built, the standard it is built to and the processes used to build and manage it.

Any manager that's worth working for still codes. Once they code no more they care more about process and profit.

Re: Not Just Any Old Geek

#189

Post by jimbokun »

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…

"nobody these days rolls their own SQRT function to squeeze out a few extra CPU cycles"

Um, nobody did this 20 years ago, either.

Re: Not Just Any Old Geek

#190

Post by jimbokun »

rubber_duck wrote: post #177
santaclaus wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Did you use SCM, automated testing and design patterns 20 years ago ? If yes do you think this was the norm in the industry ? Design patterns are way older than 20 years... hell, the design pattern bible was published 22 years ago, which means design patterns were in wide circulation well before I could tie shoes. According to wikipedia CVS has been around for 26 years.

Again - I'm not saying these things didn't exist - I'm saying they weren't the norm in the industry.

You're saying a lot of things, without stopping to check whether you're right or not.
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