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You're never too old to learn to code

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Re: You're never too old to learn to code

#31

Post by samsonradu »

petra wrote: post #21
buserror wrote: post #13

While I agree that in principle you can learn to code at any age, I think this article misses the entire point of every "learn to code" article. Whether it's kids, women, oldies etc etc. Coding is a calling. You can learn anything if you have the calling for it. If you learn because you 'should' (ie, it's encouraged by others and or/money) you will end up being average at it, at best. Coding is not for everyone, it's…

>> you will end up being average at it, at best. What's wrong with being average and making a living ? assuming of course there's place for average people in this field ? someone need to write those simple but boring CRUD.

Well, there's nothing wrong besides your job security, which will erode over time due to competition (low-barrier to being average) and also because your tasks could/will be automated.

This stands in many other industries of course, but the point is that not pushing for being better is not a viable long-term strategy if you need to earn a living from it.

Re: You're never too old to learn to code

#32

Post by signal11 »

samsonradu wrote: post #31
petra wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> you will end up being average at it, at best. What's wrong with being average and making a living ? assuming of course there's place for average people in this field ? someone need to write those simple but boring CRUD.

Well, there's nothing wrong besides your job security, which will erode over time due to competition (low-barrier to being average) and also because your tasks could/will be automated. This stands in many other industries of course, but the point is that not pushing for being better is not a viable long-term strategy if you need to earn a living from it.

Very good point. Eventually the routine stuff gets automated. For instance [1] is an attempt previously covered on HN to generate code from an interface mockup/screenshot. Obviously this'll take years of work to perfect, but because UI wiring code is pretty routine for simple forms, I can totally see this working eventually.

[1] https://github.com/tonybeltramelli/pix2code

Re: You're never too old to learn to code

#33

Post by soneca »

samsonradu wrote: post #31
petra wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> you will end up being average at it, at best. What's wrong with being average and making a living ? assuming of course there's place for average people in this field ? someone need to write those simple but boring CRUD.

Well, there's nothing wrong besides your job security, which will erode over time due to competition (low-barrier to being average) and also because your tasks could/will be automated. This stands in many other industries of course, but the point is that not pushing for being better is not a viable long-term strategy if you need to earn a living from it.

That seems more likely when you are bad, not average.

But there is also the problem that average is relative. I consider myself average, when comparing to the best developer in my company. But I am sure he considers himself average when comparing himself to other outstanding famous developers.

Re: You're never too old to learn to code

#34

Post by sonnyblarney »

buserror wrote: post #13

While I agree that in principle you can learn to code at any age, I think this article misses the entire point of every "learn to code" article. Whether it's kids, women, oldies etc etc. Coding is a calling. You can learn anything if you have the calling for it. If you learn because you 'should' (ie, it's encouraged by others and or/money) you will end up being average at it, at best. Coding is not for everyone, it's…

"Coding is a calling."

No more than anything else could be.

I've found that after time, it's better to look at it from a much more pragmatic view. When I feel 'it's a calling' I get caught up in perfection and bike shedding. When I treat it like work and focus on outcomes ... stuff gets done :)

Re: You're never too old to learn to code

#35

Post by [deleted] »

buserror wrote: post #13

While I agree that in principle you can learn to code at any age, I think this article misses the entire point of every "learn to code" article. Whether it's kids, women, oldies etc etc. Coding is a calling. You can learn anything if you have the calling for it. If you learn because you 'should' (ie, it's encouraged by others and or/money) you will end up being average at it, at best. Coding is not for everyone, it's…

[deleted]

Re: You're never too old to learn to code

#36

Post by [deleted] »

buserror wrote: post #13

While I agree that in principle you can learn to code at any age, I think this article misses the entire point of every "learn to code" article. Whether it's kids, women, oldies etc etc. Coding is a calling. You can learn anything if you have the calling for it. If you learn because you 'should' (ie, it's encouraged by others and or/money) you will end up being average at it, at best. Coding is not for everyone, it's…

[deleted]

Re: You're never too old to learn to code

#37

Post by [deleted] »

gaius wrote: post #26
dalbasal wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, the origins of this bias are fairly arbitrary. First, there is a real reason. Young people are more likely to be engaged with newer knowledge, technology, tools and such. That's balanced against older people being more experienced. It's particularly relevant in the software space, but the youthful exuberance VS experienced sobriety trade-off exists in all fields. Think of medicine, architecture, art... The bigg…

Young people are more likely to be engaged with newer knowledge, technology, tools and such Citation very much needed. Because that sounds like pure ageism. Who invented all the devices young people love to consume media on...?

[deleted]

Re: You're never too old to learn to code

#38

Post by Clubber »

andyjohnson0 wrote: post #23
buserror wrote: post #13

While I agree that in principle you can learn to code at any age, I think this article misses the entire point of every "learn to code" article. Whether it's kids, women, oldies etc etc. Coding is a calling. You can learn anything if you have the calling for it. If you learn because you 'should' (ie, it's encouraged by others and or/money) you will end up being average at it, at best. Coding is not for everyone, it's…

> Coding is a calling. It might be for some, but for many I suspect it is a job. An interesting job, but a job nevertheless. Elevating what is essentially an economic activity to the level of a "calling" seems strange to me. I've been developing software professionally for over 25 years. I think I'm reasonably good at it, although I'm no rockstar dev. I enjoy working with software and it scratches an intellectual itc…

>Elevating what is essentially an economic activity to the level of a "calling" seems strange to me.

I'm not quite the OPs age, but I'm in his orbit. When people like us started doing it, there was zero economic incentive, at least for me. It was something we just loved doing, like drawing or writing music, or writing stories. We just got lucky that it ended up being lucrative. That's what he means by being a calling.

In fact, in college, I seriously considered not doing coding as a profession because I liked it so much as a hobby. I believed if I had to do it for a job, I would fall out of love with it. Fortunately I ignored those concerns and have been coding professionally since the late 90s.

Re: You're never too old to learn to code

#39

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

dalbasal wrote: post #15
YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #14

People in tech like to think that they are logically, even scientifically minded but the truth is we are all subject to cultural bias, just as much as the next person. This silly idea that computers are a young man's game is going to come back and bite a great many people in the behind in a few years, when they naturally age and find themselves over what they previously considered the age threshold for the job they s…

Also, the origins of this bias are fairly arbitrary. First, there is a real reason. Young people are more likely to be engaged with newer knowledge, technology, tools and such. That's balanced against older people being more experienced. It's particularly relevant in the software space, but the youthful exuberance VS experienced sobriety trade-off exists in all fields. Think of medicine, architecture, art... The bigg…

>> The point about people learning more new things in their youth is valid regardless of field.

That, too, requires a citation. It's not an unreasonable assumption to make, but then so is the assumption that, as time goes by, the chance to encounter new knowledge increases so that older people will tend to have more knowledge than younger ones.

Let's not just embrace either assumption without good reason, is what I'm saying. Especially when there is a chance of further validating damaging cultural biases.

Re: You're never too old to learn to code

#40

Post by FLUX-YOU »

buserror wrote: post #13

While I agree that in principle you can learn to code at any age, I think this article misses the entire point of every "learn to code" article. Whether it's kids, women, oldies etc etc. Coding is a calling. You can learn anything if you have the calling for it. If you learn because you 'should' (ie, it's encouraged by others and or/money) you will end up being average at it, at best. Coding is not for everyone, it's…

>who /probably/ would have been better trying to follow a calling of their own...

If you don't know your calling, finding it can be an expensive process. You can spend years and years and years trying it and frankly, there's bills to pay, even if trying new callings costs $0. Housing and healthcare in the US is outpacing the lowest paying jobs.

So yes, people hack their way into tech because then you can use the savings to do something else. In fact, I tried two callings and they both turned out to be expensive mistakes until I found out I happened to be useful to someone at programming. I still treat it as a career that I'm going to maximize my pay with. No one's sold me on having crazy passions in this industry because things change so rapidly. The required learning rate is also vastly oversold. Even front end development is settling into component frameworks.

Plus, if one guy with a neckbeard comes along and tells you "this ain't your calling, kid", should you really believe him? Maybe he's right, but maybe the next 10 people you meet could have the opposite opinion. In my experience, few people are actually brazen enough to tell a co-worker something like this, so you're not likely to get a good sample size anyway.

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