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On Getting Older in Tech

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Re: On Getting Older in Tech

#181

Post by entropy_ »

metafunctor wrote: post #153
blacktulip wrote: post #139

Any language is superior to JavaScript.

No. JavaScript, the core language, is OK. Sure, there are warts, like this , lack of a good module system, and weird type coercions. Most of the bad rap JavaScript gets is because it lives in the browser, and the DOM, with all the cross browser issues that come with that. It's not all JavaScript's fault. In fact, most of it is definitely not JavaScript's fault.

At least as far as I'm concerned, the biggest wart of all is variables that are global by default. That just makes no sense at all...

Re: On Getting Older in Tech

#183

Post by [deleted] »

anondon wrote: post #82
wcummings wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PR BS & founder worship. If he wasnt spending time on PR he wouldn't be doing interviews

> If he wasnt spending time on PR he wouldn't be doing interviews There's a difference between spending minimal time and no time at all on business, PR aspects. > founder worship I only stated the facts. Where is the worship?

[deleted]

Re: On Getting Older in Tech

#184

Post by Waterluvian »

epalmer wrote: post #161

I'm going to apologize ahead of time. this might be a ramble. 63 year old white guy with little hair and a lifelong beard that is now white. A tad overweight as well. I feel for so many people expressing angst about ageism. I've seen it elsewhere but not where I work now. I suspect that at the faster growing companies and companies in tech centers, mostly on the coasts, see more pronounced ageism. My last job was at…

Was it a paycut or really just electing to convert less time into money?

So many salaries look and sound impressive until you actually do the math on what it costs you.

Re: On Getting Older in Tech

#185

Post by DanBC »

blub wrote: post #104

I don't find this post inspiring, I find it sad. It's partly self-encouragment, part PR. The fact that it even exists is proof that the author is facing some issues, no matter how confident they would like to appear. That recipe to stay current looks tiresome. Listen to two podcasts, two webcasts, subscribe to four magazines, teach courses, go to one conference per year, blog regularly, read blogs, follow the latest…

> And why is it that most older people answering on these threads are so passionate about learning

...because older people are told all the time, even on HN, that they're too old to learn and that they don't keep up with technology.

It's not surprising that they pre-empt these doubts by saying what they do to keep learning.

> Why not have an honest conversation

What's the honest conversation?

Re: On Getting Older in Tech

#186

Post by uhtred »

One of the strongest team members at my workplace, super smart, asks more questions than anyone else, thinks of the stuff the younger guys don't, basically would always want him on my team as he gets stuff done, is an older guy. I think he's prob in his mid 50s. (to be clear, I don't actually think mid 50s is old, but society sometimes suggests it is)

Re: On Getting Older in Tech

#188

Post by bungie4 »

While I believe their ageism in tech. So what. I'm 56, I've been programming professionally for 30+ years. Code is still code. Theirs not much new under the sun at a core level.

Consider this, many thousands of lives depend on my ability to write good, maintainable code everyday. I do Alarms, Telematics and 911 Systems.

So ageism. ya, it exists. But for every 50 year old coder, theirs 150 under 30 in the business. Its just the way it is. But I know, if I was in the hiring end of the game, I'd drop my dime on the old fart whose got a ton of REAL WORLD experience over some freshly minted grad every day of the week.

Re: On Getting Older in Tech

#189

Post by marklgr »

mattmanser wrote: post #132
marklgr wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In that context, to me, tactics is writing & debugging code, compiling stuff, settings things up to work with other libs--ie. mostly hands-on tasks. Strategy is more about planning, architecture, knowing about the real pros and cons of different solutions eg. libs, tools or languages.

At 37 I'm much faster at debugging today than I was at 27. And 10 years ago, I was consistently one of the fastest debuggers in a company of 15-20 programmers. Debugging's always been one of my strongest programming skills. So debugging, no, definitely not. I can spot root-causes of bugs now even easier than I used to be able to. And one of the big new skills is that I'm much more able to 'guess' where a bug is in so…

Some people specialize, and get more and more efficient at the same specific tasks; but I believe it's more common to widen one's experience in various areas (languages, tools, platforms, non-functional requirements etc.), leading to some lack of practice in the hands-on tasks one used to do everyday in the past, and also making it more difficult to commit everything to memory. On the other hand, one generally gets a much broader picture.

For instance, I used to be able to perftune UNIX and DB (mostly Oracle on Solaris) pretty well, knowing various kernel parameters by heart and all the tools of the day (tkprof, Cockroft and co). Now I guess I could still get by after some brush-up, but I'm not anywhere near as efficient as I used to be on that specific task. And I still write code, but I don't know every single method of every API anymore. But now, I can design full solutions, from choosing the hardware to setting up platform, languages, monitoring, high-availability, backups, security etc. Not because I'm smarter, but because I've been exposed to all that along the years.

Re: On Getting Older in Tech

#190

Post by FroshKiller »

heymijo wrote: post #173
epalmer wrote: post #161

I'm going to apologize ahead of time. this might be a ramble. 63 year old white guy with little hair and a lifelong beard that is now white. A tad overweight as well. I feel for so many people expressing angst about ageism. I've seen it elsewhere but not where I work now. I suspect that at the faster growing companies and companies in tech centers, mostly on the coasts, see more pronounced ageism. My last job was at…

"I find these days I spend less time coding and I end up with better applications because I think through the design before coding." ^A golden nugget buried in an insightful ramble.

And you don't have to be a certain age to learn that lesson and put it in practice.
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