Admirable as a life example, not sure that starting coding at 56 guarantees higher ROI and market than sql/excel for data analysis though?
Learning to code at 56
51–60 of 165 posts
Re: Learning to code at 56
#52At 51, I've noticed there are really two kinds of people at my age... people who are completely beaten, and people who are winning. Once you hit 40 or so, the scope of mortality really hits you. You realize that you've probably already had half your productive life, maybe half a career. You start seeing peers die of "old age" - heart attacks and strokes and stuff. For most, they're beaten, defeated. They decide this…
part of the problem is by the time you're 50, you've had 30 years of adult life to accumulate bad decisions.
a lot of people are saddled with obligations they never actually wanted. :(
Re: Learning to code at 56
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
credentialism - the best way of inflating wages with artificial scarcity,
why is it artificial? Credentials are everywhere. You need credentials to be an account, a physician, a teacher, a lawyer, a dentist, a chiropractor, a (insert various iteration of crazy welding techniques) welder, a steel fabricator (AISC), a child services worker, heavy machinery operator, if you are an engineer and want to work for the public, you have to get licensed, and the list can go on and on. And I am reall…
I think the difference is that credentials as a doctor, lawyer, dentist, chiropractor, etc. tend to be all-encompassing for those professions. In software, credentialing is extremely narrow (i.e. credentials for subsets of Cisco's offerings, or Microsoft's). Other than college degrees, there really isn't any type of broad credentialing available in the computer industry. Credentials are also short-lived. Does anybody really care if someone is a C.N.E. anymore?
Computer credentials are also a for-profit business model, rather than an organized body that ensures a certain degree of competency is met. For example, being a board certified physician requires a lot more than simply passing a bubble test, which is what a lot of credentials in the computer industry consist of.
I think credentialing does demonstrate a certain degree of competency, but it also does create an artificial scarcity, since many, many, many people out there have the same skills, or better, but just don't feel the need to obtain credentials.
Re: Learning to code at 56
#54As long as you still have a working memory, you can learn anything at any age, I don't go along with this 'old-dog-can't-learn-new-tricks' thinking. Though obviously when you're younger it's markedly easier to pick up a new skill.
It does take longer for many people to learn new things when they are 50-60 though. I do think we have to be realistic about the issue that many people who learned and performed complex intellectual skills in their 20s/30s no longer perform this kind of ability to pivot in their 50s/60s; to learn a new craft that depends on learning a lot of new information/skills. Of course this doesn't mean that all people in their…
"I think we have to be realistic about" is, whether you intend it or not, an attempt to reframe the discussion around your particular set of priors. We need to be careful about language like that.
There are many reasons to challenge the assumption that it's difficult for older people to learn to code:
* It's may not be valid to extrapolate from more general neuroplasticity findings to programming
* It may be that changes in neuroplasticity affect the effectiveness of different modalities of learning, so that it's not so much that it's harder for older people to learn coding, but that they might need to use different strategies to learn --- for instance, 20 year olds might be able to get away with rote memorization as a crutch, and older adults might need to use more authentic learning strategies
* It's also possible that for large numbers of adults, learning to code is easier, because their brains have been trained through work they've done throughout their careers
* It's also the case that there isn't one "programming", but rather a whole constellation of different skills, some of which reward an orientation towards organization and careful planning, some of which reward tenacity, some of which reward creative and intuitive thinking, some of which reward numeracy, and so on
We should be very careful about generalizing, because one thing we do know is that human brains have incredibly powerful cognitive biases that are working constantly to fill in the blanks in our knowledge --- particularly about our models of the behavior and capabilities of other humans --- and much of what it fills in is accurate only up to the point where it allows us to effectively collect berries and hunt gazelles and stuff.
For whatever it's worth: I'm 40, not 50, but the tempo at which I've been learning new things is accelerating, not decelerating: I work in more languages now, I work in more problem domains (for instance, I never used to do any front-end work), and in particular my math --- which has always been awful --- has been improving by leaps and bounds. Maybe things will suddenly suck for me when I turn 50, but the current trends are not worrying me.
Re: Learning to code at 56
#55At my age the main problem is that I read a lot in a computer screen and my eyes get tired. Recently I read in the last weak several books for learning Erlang and Elixir and one for refreshing ruby. Last month I learned java by doing several projects with netbeans. Initially I programmwd only with gedit and googling stack overflow. I was programming feom six pm to five am to help my son with a java project. Honestly…
Have you tried flux? https://justgetflux.com/ It helps me with the eye strain. Also I am starting to find myself returning to good ole paperback books for reading. Try printing out some code bases when ever you start getting more advanced you can actually learn a lot from studying code.
flux is awesome. i can't use it during the day though, because it puts me to sleep! it works too well.
Re: Learning to code at 56
#56At my age the main problem is that I read a lot in a computer screen and my eyes get tired. Recently I read in the last weak several books for learning Erlang and Elixir and one for refreshing ruby. Last month I learned java by doing several projects with netbeans. Initially I programmwd only with gedit and googling stack overflow. I was programming feom six pm to five am to help my son with a java project. Honestly…
Have you tried flux? https://justgetflux.com/ It helps me with the eye strain. Also I am starting to find myself returning to good ole paperback books for reading. Try printing out some code bases when ever you start getting more advanced you can actually learn a lot from studying code.
Or redhshift for Linux.
Re: Learning to code at 56
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's a very non-inclusive way of thinking, and it is hard to imagine that it benefits the community as a whole. What if you substituted developers, in this situation, for doctors?
I'd rather die of an abscessed tooth than visit a doctor out of whatever the equivalent of bootcamps would be. I'm grateful to society I don't have to.
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Re: Learning to code at 56
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
why is it artificial? Credentials are everywhere. You need credentials to be an account, a physician, a teacher, a lawyer, a dentist, a chiropractor, a (insert various iteration of crazy welding techniques) welder, a steel fabricator (AISC), a child services worker, heavy machinery operator, if you are an engineer and want to work for the public, you have to get licensed, and the list can go on and on. And I am reall…
I think the difference is that credentials as a doctor, lawyer, dentist, chiropractor, etc. tend to be all-encompassing for those professions. In software, credentialing is extremely narrow (i.e. credentials for subsets of Cisco's offerings, or Microsoft's). Other than college degrees, there really isn't any type of broad credentialing available in the computer industry. Credentials are also short-lived. Does anybody…
C.N.E no, I don't think it ever mattered. An R.N., however...
Re: Learning to code at 56
#59I can relate with the fitting in part, though my situation is the complete opposite. I am a self-taught developer that skipped college and I have been a professional software engineer since 18, I am now 21 and have been programming for at least 8 years. At the company I am now working for as a senior engineer I am the youngest here by a large margin. I am the most experienced and youngest and it has caused a bit of hostility towards me. I can understand why though but luckily it has died down since I have been here a few months.
Re: Learning to code at 56
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
Perhaps it really is an ad, but if it is real, I am impressed that the person thinks at 56, he has enough runway in life to make a serious contribution by coding :-)...I like that attitude.
why wouldn't he? plenty of folks much younger than me have made 'serious contributions' in far less time than I have.
I'm growing old too and I find it hard to motivate myself to take up new things that are very long term -- somedays I wonder what is the point in learning a new programming language or framework and I am nowhere as old as him. Which is why I liked his attitude. It's refreshing and inspiring.