25 years of coding, and I'm just beginning • Hacker News Board

Re: 25 years of coding, and I'm just beginning

#41

Post by bch » Sun, Jan 20, 2019, 2:18 AM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #31

bch wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think PG said[0] it well: Suppose you own a beat-up old car. Instead of sitting on your butt next summer, you could spend the time restoring your car to pristine condition. In doing so you create wealth. The world is-- and you specifically are-- one pristine old car the richer. And not just in some metaphorical way. If you sell your car, you'll get more for it. In restoring your old car you have made yourself riche…

I'm guessing Paul Graham has never restored a beat up car to pristine condition. Your pristine condition car that will fetch you less than the new parts you put in when you sell it at what the market will pay for it. Restoring beat up cars to new state is a losing game unless someone pays you to do the work, except for some rare collectibles, which I am assuming are not your personal beat up car. And even then chance…

I think you’re correct. It’s an easy-to-grasp metaphor, but cracks appear when you look harder, especially with the specific detail of “restoring to pristine condition”. Illustrative as a fable of value-add, though.

Re: 25 years of coding, and I'm just beginning

#42

Post by grkvlt » Sun, Jan 20, 2019, 2:19 AM UTC

perfmode wrote: post #16

orev wrote: post #3

What every salary-person has to show for it: a life lived; bills paid; food on the table; health; a roof over your head; a body not ravaged and damaged by hard labor; the ability to relax and have some entertainment in the evening; a place to sleep; comfort; relative stability; the ability to make a living using mostly just your brain. Yes, perspective is important, and I’m not saying one should not strive to make mo…

I can’t enjoy my leisure when there is so much injustice around me

Sucks to be you, I guess? But really, what is being suggested is that you can do something you find enjoyable when you are not working; in your case I would assume this would be trying to correct these injustices you see around you...

Re: 25 years of coding, and I'm just beginning

#43

Post by mmjaa » Sun, Jan 20, 2019, 2:21 AM UTC

I've been coding for 30 years and I can't count the number of times my stuff has just disappeared into the ether. All the CP/M apps I wrote, the DOS apps, the risc/OS and the Windows and OS/2 apps, the BeOS stuff, the Linux stuff, the iOS and Android apps which no longer work yet will never be updated to 64-bit "just because", etc.

The industry doesn't promote longevity - and neither do its participants, who graduate from wherever they learned a career skill to enter the market and make waves - by writing new shit that will change everything, and guarantee that the work that was there before they came will become irrelevant and archaic "ASAP".

You need not blame yourself. This is normal.

Re: 25 years of coding, and I'm just beginning

#44

Post by ngcc_hk » Sun, Jan 20, 2019, 2:21 AM UTC

orev wrote: post #3

What every salary-person has to show for it: a life lived; bills paid; food on the table; health; a roof over your head; a body not ravaged and damaged by hard labor; the ability to relax and have some entertainment in the evening; a place to sleep; comfort; relative stability; the ability to make a living using mostly just your brain. Yes, perspective is important, and I’m not saying one should not strive to make mo…

Great wisdom you have.

*

Of course one may add other may be unnecessary concerns - whether the world we live in are better for our kids than we do. We have enjoyed no world hot conflict for decades. Environment can be used and within our life time ... ba la ba la. Are our kids better ?

Or many things happened in the last several years challenge all our knowledge of society - trump and Brexit and the raise of communist china etc. We live in interesting time.

Just relearn swift (forget quit a bit after my iOS app on app story in 2015).

Re: 25 years of coding, and I'm just beginning

#45

Post by guntars » Sun, Jan 20, 2019, 2:22 AM UTC

steve_taylor wrote: post #17

orev wrote: post #3

What every salary-person has to show for it: a life lived; bills paid; food on the table; health; a roof over your head; a body not ravaged and damaged by hard labor; the ability to relax and have some entertainment in the evening; a place to sleep; comfort; relative stability; the ability to make a living using mostly just your brain. Yes, perspective is important, and I’m not saying one should not strive to make mo…

You forgot to mention millions of dollars of value created for other people.

If you create an app that makes some annoying task take half the time, you can potentially save literal lifetimes of frustration for your users. The value created for the founders is a small fraction of the value created for the users.

Re: 25 years of coding, and I'm just beginning

#46

Post by UncleEntity » Sun, Jan 20, 2019, 2:22 AM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #31

bch wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think PG said[0] it well: Suppose you own a beat-up old car. Instead of sitting on your butt next summer, you could spend the time restoring your car to pristine condition. In doing so you create wealth. The world is-- and you specifically are-- one pristine old car the richer. And not just in some metaphorical way. If you sell your car, you'll get more for it. In restoring your old car you have made yourself riche…

I'm guessing Paul Graham has never restored a beat up car to pristine condition. Your pristine condition car that will fetch you less than the new parts you put in when you sell it at what the market will pay for it. Restoring beat up cars to new state is a losing game unless someone pays you to do the work, except for some rare collectibles, which I am assuming are not your personal beat up car. And even then chance…

...unless you just want to drive an older car instead of buying a new replacement for the old clunker.

I've never restored a car to pristine condition but have kept quite a few on the road as daily drivers and they were certainly cheaper than buying a new car every three years or so by a huge margin. My current "clunker" is an '87 Goldwing that should be on the road in perfect driving condition with a few hundred invested in parts once I get around to working on it. Heck, might even get the neighbor to give it new paint since he offered "a good deal" a while back and still be ahead on resale value.

Re: 25 years of coding, and I'm just beginning

#47

Post by mmjaa » Sun, Jan 20, 2019, 2:23 AM UTC

readingnews wrote: post #5

No offense, but you claim you have been "officially coding for 25 years now". You state you are 36. Were you really, officially doing anything at 11 years of age. What does that mean? I was a solder tech at 13 years old. I NEVER throw that out there in any blog or write up, even though I was _literally_ getting a paycheck from a company. Does that make me an official solder tech? Hell no. When people ask how much exp…

I wrote my first commercial software at 13, in 1983. That has been relevant all my career - it explains what kind of computer interests I have, and relays clues about my motivation for continuing to work in the industry. I see nothing wrong with this - in the 80's, a heck of a lot of good programmers were teenagers. So? It is still the case, and in my opinion one of the positives of the industry...

Re: 25 years of coding, and I'm just beginning

#48

Post by ngcc_hk » Sun, Jan 20, 2019, 2:26 AM UTC

grkvlt wrote: post #38

jacquesm wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm guessing Paul Graham has never restored a beat up car to pristine condition. Your pristine condition car that will fetch you less than the new parts you put in when you sell it at what the market will pay for it. Restoring beat up cars to new state is a losing game unless someone pays you to do the work, except for some rare collectibles, which I am assuming are not your personal beat up car. And even then chance…

As with all car analogies, this is NOT about cars - it's telling a story about wealth creation...

But if it does not work he should have a better example.

Still remember the paper about the externality of bee farm and apple farm. Obvious issue of apple not paid the bee farm but no such issue - all paid and in fact have contract what kind of bees etc.

A bad economic example is bad example.

Re: 25 years of coding, and I'm just beginning

#49

Post by darawk » Sun, Jan 20, 2019, 2:29 AM UTC

ngcc_hk wrote: post #44

orev wrote: post #3

What every salary-person has to show for it: a life lived; bills paid; food on the table; health; a roof over your head; a body not ravaged and damaged by hard labor; the ability to relax and have some entertainment in the evening; a place to sleep; comfort; relative stability; the ability to make a living using mostly just your brain. Yes, perspective is important, and I’m not saying one should not strive to make mo…

Great wisdom you have. * Of course one may add other may be unnecessary concerns - whether the world we live in are better for our kids than we do. We have enjoyed no world hot conflict for decades. Environment can be used and within our life time ... ba la ba la. Are our kids better ? Or many things happened in the last several years challenge all our knowledge of society - trump and Brexit and the raise of communis…

Progress proceeds in fits and starts, but i'd say we're making very good progress.

Re: 25 years of coding, and I'm just beginning

#50

Post by ngcc_hk » Sun, Jan 20, 2019, 2:30 AM UTC

mmjaa wrote: post #43

I've been coding for 30 years and I can't count the number of times my stuff has just disappeared into the ether. All the CP/M apps I wrote, the DOS apps, the risc/OS and the Windows and OS/2 apps, the BeOS stuff, the Linux stuff, the iOS and Android apps which no longer work yet will never be updated to 64-bit "just because", etc. The industry doesn't promote longevity - and neither do its participants, who graduate…

If open source them trust me someone may take that up and use it. I did. Try to learn something and dig github and find something similar to start with. A basic old turbo bridge program. Just reading it now.