Ask HN: Software development after 40, how do you keep the fire?

Eddie's jokes may no longer be PC but his old routines (Raw and Delirious) are still funny as hell. My wife and I regularly quote from them. "He didn't tell you you could take half? Well, he didn't tell you half the story....Oh hi Eddie." If you're not too uptight, watch it again and tell me it's not still funny.

Just a couple of precisions here, to clarify (even for myself) and maybe bring some more fuel to the discussion.

>make up for a slower brain, less stamina and decreasing memory

It's a fact, physiologically, that our cognitive skills decrease after the late 20s, there's abundance of literature on the subject. Now, getting older, and with experience, I believe we process information more efficiently (less cycle spent on bs), which can bring a net gain and make us more productive in our daily jobs, it's what I tried to explain in the first 2 sentences.

Concerning the "made it big", here's what I mean:

First, a computer + a brain capable of programming it is probably one of the most powerful combination that ever existed in nature. The potential for creation/disruption is immense, and we can see examples every day. Second, as software devs, one of the driving forces, probably the most important one, is creativity, imagining new things or new ways of doing them. So, when you combine those 2 things, the power and imagination, and then you spend most of your life working on some boring business app, from paycheck to paycheck, one can feel a little bit unaccomplished. The "make it big" here means feeling accomplished, having been able to move your art to its full potential. I know it's highly subjective of course, but I also know a lot of us are feeling that way, so it may not be as subjective as it seems.

I hope it clears up a bit.

Yes, but so what of it? Technology changes, society changes, tradeoffs change and the idea becomes new again, and has legs and that is interesting.

Do shit - do all kinds of shit - go into a shit frenzy if you like! Just stop letting your professional work limit your experiences in programming.

So right now, I'm in the "shit frenzy" phase. I'm building small devices during the weekend using the NodeMCU (ESP8266) microcontroller, designing custom cases for it and then 3D printing it. It's pretty exciting!

I'm also using a Raspberry Pi 3 B+ and a couple of modules to track how many times my hamster runs on his wheel, the temperature near his cage and soon I'll set up a Load Cell to weigh his little fat ass daily.

A month ago, I wrote a CLI tool written in Go that allows you to write SQL against Google's Firestore. It gave me a chance to use Antlr to define a custom SQL language and create fun commands like the ability to load a collection from a file.

At night time, I've been working on a course that will teach people with no programming experience how to code. I'm only covering what would be fundamental for getting started. That means I leave out things like recursion and other concepts. When the course is finished, I will publish it online including videos, presentations, homework assignments and more.

I've been programming professionally for over 20 years, and it feels like I just started.

All that fluffy shit being said, there have been points in my life where I thought "How can I continue to keep learning and doing at this pace"? In those moments I paused and reflected on the months surrounding those questions, and I discovered that I wasn't doing shit exciting.

I think you might be a little tired of the stress/ownership of coding and all of the details that are required in building a system. That might be a sign you need a different team.

In regards to younger folks - listen, I get what you go through at times. I use to hate having some old lazy person tell you bullshit. Here's some advice for you.

1. Sometimes older people are just beaten and worn down - because of that, and they'll try to slow you down. Try to listen to their reasoning and determine "is this person full of shit and wants to look good or am I moving too fast and it's hurting me"?

2. Age has not a fucking thing to do with how experienced you are in this industry. I've seen code monkeys who pushed the same key for 15 years. Ask yourself.. is that asshole a senior engineer?

3. Try to find someone who's a) knowledgeable and b) gives a shit about you. Make friends and learn!

4. Remember - one day you'll become that old ass person. So try not to turn into a dick yourself. It's far too easy to grow an ego and shut people down in this industry. 99% of the shit people say is highly subjective, but 1% of the shit is fact. e.g., "This is easier to maintain!" - subjective "This will cause the system to shut down, and me beat your ass" - fact.

I'm 40, started programming at age 7 on the Commodore 64.

Recently I have been exploring and implementing my own ideas with child-like purity. Programming has always been a hobby and a passion but once I started working professionally it kind of went on the backburner.

In the past I would learn new frameworks and hop on the bandwagon of whatever the newest technology was. It is getting to the point now that I'm really sick of how bad things have become. Programming in assembly required 1 op code to set a variable. Now in Redux I need 20+ SLOC across 4 files to do the same? Functions are now API calls, modules are now containers.

The tools I use are designed for specialized (division of labor) roles and favor simplicity and verbosity over power. So many barriers are erected with all the technical bureaucracy we have now.

The tools out there are built under the paradigm of a large team. There's nothing out there that is a tool for experienced programmers writing an entire app themselves.

I've set about building what I wish I could be using and am ignoring what the industry considers best practices, commonplace, etc. It's a pure creativity mode and feels more like play than work. I'm going with my gut, intuition, and experience without a concern about how it will interop with existing paradigms and what other developers are used to. I'm building short explorations to test out a concept and trying to figure out how to use these new concepts.

I'm exploring new programming paradigms: applications as a graph. How to compile said graph into an AST. How to manipulate the graph using tools appropriate for that section of the graph (lots of different structured editors / modes for each task). I think the paradigm of manipulating all aspects of an application using the same 2D grid of characters we call source code is an outdated concept.

I also enjoy mentoring interns and junior developers. It's amazing seeing them learn and using the insights that took me ages to learn.

In short, I'm concentrating on being true to myself and what I want to build rather than just programming for a paycheck.

I've found that it is very easy to get a new job, but it's much harder to find a company I like. In the past I would switch jobs chasing a hirer paycheck but now fit is much more important. Find a company where you feel like you are appreciated, can contribute meaningful work, and that gives you the freedom to do so.