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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

#51

Post by papabrown »

Finnucane wrote: post #30

I'm in my 50s, but I'm learning to code, but I'm not exactly new to it. I just didn't do it for a long time and now it's a rather different world from doing Fortran on 110-baud Decwriters. I got into an electrical engineering program, but dropped out when I discovered that the number of times they let you fail differential equations is finite. I ended up with a career in publishing. No regrets, really, but now publis…

Another 50+ guy here.

I've been thinking about getting back into coding after a multi-decade hiatus. I taught myself to code in my early 20's. Coded through my early 30's and have been in management roles (involving software development or for technology companies) ever since.

I went from Perl to Java (hated Java) to PHP and have played around with tons of languages (just enough to complete the project) in between. Right now, PHP is my go-to language for my own projects simply because I'm used to it.

I still hack stuff. I run a few websites. I write plugins for WordPress. I write little PHP or Bash scripts to automate some stuff on my server.

Recently, I've been diving into Swift. I hope to get good enough at that, that I can get a remote job and semi-retire. For me, working from home would be almost like working part-time. I don't mean that it's that easy, just that a lot of management and office politics is so soul sucking that it feels like you're working 24 hours a day.

It's tough coming back. But, I've never strayed too far from coding to begin with.

It seems the advantage I have is experience. I've been there and done that before, even if I wasn't the one writing the code. Even being in management, I still enjoy sitting in a room with engineers and white boarding solutions.

And having worked in management, I have a better understanding of the "why" behind features and can suggest different paths to get to the same outcome.

I guess I'll find out if you're too old to code when I start looking for jobs :-)

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

#52

Post by arif_sohaib »

What I really hate about articles like this is they try to convince people we are just rolling in money and job opportunities just staring at our screens and use that to flood the market with people who don't care about anything but the money and use them to lower salaries for the rest of us. I don't seem to come across nearly as much articles like this for nurses, paralegals, chefs and other such professions that pay as well and might be far more rewarding for certain types of people and the jobs are probably easier to get, based on the number of bootcamps and job hunting services solely for computer science professionals.

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

#53

Post by petra »

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.

i wouldn't be surprised that , in certain cases , being an average coder but having another skill: knowing how to work well with people, political capital in your company, enough domain knowledge, being hard working, choosing to work in a more stable org or the public sector, may be a good enough barrier to competition.

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

#54

Post by mikestew »

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, a job as a Christian pastor (being the first to come to mind) is a "calling". Shitty pay, every single person in a pew is your "boss", little-to-no retirement plan and 24/7 pager duty with no pager bonus. But, hey, you're not in it for the money. A job with flexible hours, employer matching, and a six figure salary is a "damned cushy job", not a calling. It might be for some, but it is not a given.

That said, the same thing went on in the 80s: "hey, programming pays pretty well, and there's not enough programmers! Get in now!" What we ended up with were quite a few folks that weren't particularly well-suited for the role who continued to do it because, well, you gonna walk away from that paycheck? Those I knew didn't particularly like their job. Those are the ones who only know COBOL after twenty years. I imagine it's only gotten worse as word gets around about what top engineers at Google are making (which none of the rest of us ever stand a chance of making).

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

#55

Post by mikestew »

Clubber wrote: post #38
andyjohnson0 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

When people like us started doing it, there was zero economic incentive, at least for me.

Folks have been making an upper-middle class living writing code since at least the late 70s (when my Mom started). There has always been an economic incentive. Now maybe no one was paying your sixteen year old self to write shitty JS code for that game idea you had, but if one had a BS in CS there were plenty of companies willing to pay you generously for your time.

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

#56

Post by Clubber »

mikestew wrote: post #55
Clubber wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

When people like us started doing it, there was zero economic incentive, at least for me. Folks have been making an upper-middle class living writing code since at least the late 70s (when my Mom started). There has always been an economic incentive. Now maybe no one was paying your sixteen year old self to write shitty JS code for that game idea you had, but if one had a BS in CS there were plenty of companies willi…

>your sixteen year old self to write shitty JS code

Lol. JS didn't exist when I was 16, but way to miss the point! Ask your mom how many people knew anything about the computers in the 70s and 80s. It was a very small group of mainly ostracized kids. They certainly weren't doing it to get rich.

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

#57

Post by mikestew »

Clubber wrote: post #56
mikestew wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When people like us started doing it, there was zero economic incentive, at least for me. Folks have been making an upper-middle class living writing code since at least the late 70s (when my Mom started). There has always been an economic incentive. Now maybe no one was paying your sixteen year old self to write shitty JS code for that game idea you had, but if one had a BS in CS there were plenty of companies willi…

>your sixteen year old self to write shitty JS code Lol. JS didn't exist when I was 16, but way to miss the point! Ask your mom how many people knew anything about the computers in the 70s and 80s. It was a very small group of mainly ostracized kids. They certainly weren't doing it to get rich.

Lol. JS didn't exist when I was 16

Which is why I used it as an example. No need to get personal.

Ask your mom how many people knew anything about the computers in the 70s and 80s.

Don't have to ask, I was there. And the number is irrelevant. Point is, you said there was "zero economic incentive". I'm saying there was plenty of incentive. Perhaps that wasn't your incentive, but that doesn't mean it didn't exist. Because it existed for others, and given that it was their primary incentive, they didn't always enjoy their jobs very much.

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

#58

Post by Clubber »

mikestew wrote: post #57
Clubber wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>your sixteen year old self to write shitty JS code Lol. JS didn't exist when I was 16, but way to miss the point! Ask your mom how many people knew anything about the computers in the 70s and 80s. It was a very small group of mainly ostracized kids. They certainly weren't doing it to get rich.

Lol. JS didn't exist when I was 16 Which is why I used it as an example. No need to get personal. Ask your mom how many people knew anything about the computers in the 70s and 80s. Don't have to ask, I was there. And the number is irrelevant. Point is, you said there was "zero economic incentive". I'm saying there was plenty of incentive. Perhaps that wasn't your incentive, but that doesn't mean it didn't exist. Beca…

>No need to get personal.

Eh, if you don't want backlash, maybe you shouldn't throw out things like this: "your sixteen year old self to write shitty JS code"

>you said there was "zero economic incentive"

I said, "there was zero economic incentive, at least for me." If you're going to be pedantic, at least read what I wrote.

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

#59

Post by ASalazarMX »

mikestew wrote: post #54
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, a job as a Christian pastor (being the first to come to mind) is a "calling". Shitty pay, every single person in a pew is your "boss", little-to-no retirement plan and 24/7 pager duty with no pager bonus. But, hey, you're not in it for the money. A job with flexible hours, employer matching, and a six figure salary is a "damned cushy job", not a calling. It might be for some, but it is not a…

No. Everything can be a calling.

Many of us didn't learn coding because it was lucrative, we learned at a young age because the intimate relationship between mind and machine drew us further in. You played a game and wondered how it was programmed, how could a bit of light in the screen could know when other bit of light touched it? It was a challenging and rewarding hobby that luckily turned lucrative. Even if it cost me money, I would still code things as a hobby.

If coding didn't exist, I'm sure I would be doing electronics. Curiously, once I dreamed electronics also didn't exist, so I had to become a watchmaker.

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

#60

Post by mikestew »

Clubber wrote: post #58
mikestew wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lol. JS didn't exist when I was 16 Which is why I used it as an example. No need to get personal. Ask your mom how many people knew anything about the computers in the 70s and 80s. Don't have to ask, I was there. And the number is irrelevant. Point is, you said there was "zero economic incentive". I'm saying there was plenty of incentive. Perhaps that wasn't your incentive, but that doesn't mean it didn't exist. Beca…

>No need to get personal. Eh, if you don't want backlash, maybe you shouldn't throw out things like this: "your sixteen year old self to write shitty JS code" >you said there was "zero economic incentive" I said, "there was zero economic incentive, at least for me." If you're going to be pedantic, at least read what I wrote.

Eh, if you don't want backlash, maybe you shouldn't throw out things like this: "your sixteen year old self to write shitty JS code"

You're just bound and determined to take offense, eh? Let me rephrase: "no need to make it personally about you, Clubber".

If you're going to be pedantic, at least read what I wrote.

I read just fine: "When people like us started doing it, there was zero economic incentive..."

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