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Software Developers after 40, 50 and 60 Who're Still Coding

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Re: Software Developers after 40, 50 and 60 Who're Still Coding

#71

Post by pjc50 »

numinary1 wrote: post #62

What's up with the phrase, "Still programming?" Would anyone think it odd for a 60-year-old physician to still be doctoring, or a 60-year-old lawyer to still practice law. Or for that matter for a 60-year-old artist or craftsperson to "still" pursue their craft. Corporate culture embraces the notion of management as a profession. I think programming would benefit greatly from more of a tradecraft model, where leaders…

Fred Brooks wrote about that idea in 1975. It seems that the management side still has not learned the lesson.

Re: Software Developers after 40, 50 and 60 Who're Still Coding

#72

Post by [deleted] »

dtietjen wrote: post #64

I expect one contributing factor to this statistic is the proliferation of software development over the past decade. As millennials get older, so too will this generation of coders and hackers. The mid-twenties image "software engineer" conjures, will keep getting older. I'm fascinated to see how this will make software engineering a less sexy job / will change tech culture among deveopers

[deleted]

Re: Software Developers after 40, 50 and 60 Who're Still Coding

#74

Post by Mc_Big_G »

45. Still coding, probably until I die. Light years ahead of younger developers in the following:

* Writing less code

* Writing maintainable code

* Re-using existing code (requires reading existing code)

* Know how APIs should be written

* Knowing how to properly map associations

* Know when or when not to use another library

* Knowing when to tell a product manager to go back and do some more product managing

* Knowing when to say "No"

* Knowing how to determine what a stake holder actually needs vs. what they think they want

* Understanding that 8 hours today and 8 hours tomorrow is 10x better than 16 hours today.

* Saying "I don't know" when asked "How long will it take" or "When will it be done"

* Fighting against shitty processes

* Fighting FOR processes

* Forcing PMs to use software designed for the purpose of creating software instead of accepting requirements through email/slack/invision/zeplin/google docs/tool of someone else's choice

Re: Software Developers after 40, 50 and 60 Who're Still Coding

#75

Post by djhworld »

numinary1 wrote: post #62

What's up with the phrase, "Still programming?" Would anyone think it odd for a 60-year-old physician to still be doctoring, or a 60-year-old lawyer to still practice law. Or for that matter for a 60-year-old artist or craftsperson to "still" pursue their craft. Corporate culture embraces the notion of management as a profession. I think programming would benefit greatly from more of a tradecraft model, where leaders…

The management track seems unsustainable anyway if the projected career path is seen as Developer -> Manager with no alternative, unless you just keep adding layers of management.

Re: Software Developers after 40, 50 and 60 Who're Still Coding

#77

Post by nandhp »

notacoward wrote: post #59
peapicker wrote: post #2

".. However, StackOverflow’s survey on age shows that there are just about 13% of developers after 40. Where are the others?" Obviously not on StackOverflow. Perhaps they have enough experience and knowledge to not need the site because they either know how to read tech books and sites to get the info they need when they have a problem using pre-existing docs, or conversely, are fully able to debug issues themselves.…

> Obviously not on StackOverflow Definitely. The content on Stack Overflow is heavily weighted towards languages and specialties less likely to be of interest to older programmers. We (I'm 51) are far more likely to be working on infrastructure and devops than on front-end. To do it, we're using C, maybe C++, maybe Python or even perl and bash, not Java, definitely not JavaScript or any of its variants, or Erlang, or…

> To do it, we're using C, maybe C++, maybe Python or even perl and bash, not Java, definitely not JavaScript or any of its variants, or Erlang, or Clojure, or whatever. Not always, but much of the time. The things we need to know are scantly represented on SO.

The languages you mention using are all in the top 20 tags. Yes, JavaScript, Java, and C# are the top three, but Python is #7, C++ is #9, and C is #18. Bash is on the second page and Perl on the third, but there are a bunch of other, less trend-sensitive, tags in between (e.g. regex, string, and multithreading). http://stackoverflow.com/tags/

Re: Software Developers after 40, 50 and 60 Who're Still Coding

#78

Post by lutusp »

I'm 71, I wrote a best-seller in the early 1980s (Apple Writer for the Apple ][), I still code regularly but not for income, so my circumstances might not be what the article focuses on. I write a lot of Python, JavaScript, some Java, I have a number of Android apps listed at the Google Play store -- all of them free, no ads (https://play.google.com/store/apps/developer?id=Paul+Lutus&h...).

Why do I still program? Because I like programming. I never experienced serious burnout, probably because I didn't have to program for anyone else -- I was always my own boss.

Apropos the article's topic, I often visit StackOverflow but I never post anything there, I only read the inquiries of others, which invariably provide the information I need. This practice might make people like me essentially invisible.

Re: Software Developers after 40, 50 and 60 Who're Still Coding

#79

Post by nebari »

Mc_Big_G wrote: post #74

45. Still coding, probably until I die. Light years ahead of younger developers in the following: * Writing less code * Writing maintainable code * Re-using existing code (requires reading existing code) * Know how APIs should be written * Knowing how to properly map associations * Know when or when not to use another library * Knowing when to tell a product manager to go back and do some more product managing * Know…

46 - also still coding. I could not agree more! :)

Also, knowing why the points in your list are significant and advantageous.

Re: Software Developers after 40, 50 and 60 Who're Still Coding

#80

Post by lolive »

prrrnd wrote: post #5
peapicker wrote: post #2

".. However, StackOverflow’s survey on age shows that there are just about 13% of developers after 40. Where are the others?" Obviously not on StackOverflow. Perhaps they have enough experience and knowledge to not need the site because they either know how to read tech books and sites to get the info they need when they have a problem using pre-existing docs, or conversely, are fully able to debug issues themselves.…

It's also safe to assume that after 40, most software developers find themselves in a higher level of hierarchy.

Or free-lance.
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