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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

#91

Post by pnw_hazor »

coldtea wrote: post #56
ronilan wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand how someone can "have enough experience and knowledge to not need the site" . I use StackOverflow practically all the time. I always think to myself, "yep, this (Wikipedia, YouTube and... yah HN) is what the internet is for" . But maybe I'm just too young. (I'm 47 ;) )

> I don't understand how someone can "have enough experience and knowledge to not need the site". If you've been programming for a couple of decades and you don't follow the trends du jour it's actually quite easy (note: I'm not at that level myself). Seasoned C and C++ programmers, for example, don't have much to learn from Stack Overflow in the same way a (1) new programmer, (2) 0-20 years programmer who constantly…

Windows programmers had the MSDN, or whatever it was called.

MS provided lots of example code and docs.

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

#92

Post by kaftoy »

charles-salvia wrote: post #54
GnarfGnarf wrote: post #49

68, coding since 1965. There is no better job. I hope to be coding the week I leave. (Note: there are more useful jobs: doctor, nurse, farmer).

Doctors rely on software a lot to do their job. One day they may even be replaced by software.

I hope that day never comes.

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

#93

Post by pg314 »

cyrux004 wrote: post #85
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…

can you justify the 3-5x difference in annual compensation that younger developer makes can you justify the 2-3x difference between you and a guy who was been coding for 5-7 years ?

Yes and yes.

If I compare myself against when I just started, I'm easily 10x more valuable now (in some cases 100x). And I would still choose my current self over 5 copies of myself at 5-7 years of experience.

Maybe if you have a simple problem, like a CRUD application or a simple website, it wouldn't matter much. But for harder problems there is no contest.

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

#94

Post by mattmanser »

sokoloff wrote: post #30
sotojuan wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the same industry that calls people in their late 20s "senior".

Late 20s? I've seen title structures where the first promotion is to "senior" and that is often granted ~18 months into working. It's early enough that it can be ambiguous as to whether it means your working title or your year in college.

I saw someone get promoted to a "senior" for rolling his own logging framework. And then starts arguing with me about how long functionality will take when he clearly hasn't got a scooby of what's involved (me 2 months, him 2 days, 2 weeks later and he's still trying to pick apart how the code even works).

One of many reasons I bailed from that gig asap.

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

#95

Post by [deleted] »

cyrux004 wrote: post #85
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…

can you justify the 3-5x difference in annual compensation that younger developer makes can you justify the 2-3x difference between you and a guy who was been coding for 5-7 years ?

[deleted]

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

#96

Post by startupdiscuss »

SimonPStevens wrote: post #32

"StackOverflow’s survey on age shows that there are just about 13% of developers after 40. Where are the others?" Not wasting time filling out online surveys? I'm not even 40 yet and I realised online surveys were a waste of time years ago. :-) A stackoverflow survey doesn't measure the answers of stackoverflow users. It measures the answers from the specific demographic of stackoverflow users who are inclined to ans…

The % is misleading because more people may have joined the field as time went on, or tech became more popular.

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

#97

Post by andrey_utkin »

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…

> 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

Could you please specify examples of proper software for this purpose (communicating product/feature requirements is meant here I suppose)? Do you mean reqs must go through the issue tracker or official original spec document?

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

#98

Post by humanrebar »

mod wrote: post #82
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…

> Saying "I don't know" when asked "How long will it take" or "When will it be done" ~5 years experience speaking: How do you do this? I have a very good boss and he knows things, objectively, like "estimates are very squishy," and "developers suck at estimating time" etc. But he still demands time estimates to give clients. Our clients are often agencies, and they get it as well. I do estimates like "10-40 hours, de…

> How do you do this?

Give half-order-of-magnitude estimates as confidence intervals. Avoid using "hours" or "days" as estimates. Story points work really well here.

Be extra clear on priorities and burndowns to make it clear that you're not just blowing them off. Give short but frequent demos (not just reports) of progress. If later they're concerned about progress, you can point back to all the times you reviewed the product, touched base about priorities, and agreed on next steps.

Make risk really clear to them. If the project is 'get it done in three months or bust', then the payoff (ten times the principal?) better be high enough to account for the risk (30%? 50%? 70%) that you won't make it on time and on budget. That is, you don't want to wait until failure to discover a bad business plan.

At the end of the day, you need to be willing to be patient with and/or walk away from 'business people' that can't wrap their heads around the fact that 20% profit on a venture with a 50% failure rate is a bad business plan. Making employees stressed or overworked to compensate is not a humane solution to the problem. To that end, don't work crazy hours to meet a deadline. That is bad for you, bad for your team, and bad for management since it enables dysfunctional planning.

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

#99

Post by rimliu »

cyrux004 wrote: post #85
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…

can you justify the 3-5x difference in annual compensation that younger developer makes can you justify the 2-3x difference between you and a guy who was been coding for 5-7 years ?

Wait a minute, are those multipliers real?

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

#100

Post by solox3 »

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…

Junior here. What does "map associations" mean in this context?
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