Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, TCP is a hot mess that should and will be phased out in favor of more congestion friendly protocols.
What are those alternatives?
QUIC (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QUIC) is one alternative.
Programmers: Before you turn 40, get a plan B (2009)
141–150 of 446 posts
Re: Programmers: Before you turn 40, get a plan B (2009)
#142This is a replay of a comment I wrote several years ago to the same topic:
I'm 60+. I've been coding my whole career and I'm still coding. Never hit a plateau in pay, but nonetheless, I've found the best way to ratchet up is to change jobs which has been sad, but true - I've left some pretty decent jobs because somebody else was willing to pay more. This has been true in every decade of my career. There's been a constant push towards management that I've always resisted. People I've known who have gone into management generally didn't really want to be programming - it was just the means to kick start their careers. The same is true for any STEM field that isn't academic. If you want to go into management, do it, but if you don't and you're being pushed into it, talk to your boss. Any decent boss wants to keep good developers and will be happy to accomodate your desire to keep coding - they probably think they're doing you a favor by pushing you toward management.
I don't recommend becoming a specialist in any programming paradigm because you don't know what is coming next. Be a generalist, but keep learning everything you can. So far I've coded professionally in COBOL, Basic, Fortran, C, Ada, C++, APL, Java, Python, PERL, C#, Clojure and various assembly languages each one of which would have been tempting to become a specialist in. Somebody else pointed out that relearning the same thing over and over in new contexts gets old and that can be true, but I don't see how it can be avoided as long as there doesn't exist the "one true language". That said, I've got a neighbor about my age who still makes a great living as a COBOL programmer on legacy systems.
Now for the important part if you want to keep programming and you aren't an academic. If you want to make a living being a programmer, you can count on a decent living, but if you want to do well and have reasonable job security you've got to learn about and become an expert in something else - ideally something you're actually coding. Maybe it's banking, or process control, or contact management - it doesn't matter as long as it's something. As a developer, you are coding stuff that's important to somebody or they wouldn't be paying you to do it. Learn what you're coding beyond the level that you need just to get your work done. You almost for certain have access to resources since you need them to do your job, and if you don't figure out how to get them. Never stop learning.
Re: Programmers: Before you turn 40, get a plan B (2009)
#143Earlier quoted context omitted.
A couple of years ago, the company I worked for abruptly went out of business (like, I came into work on Monday and they said, “we’re closed effectively immediately, go home, we’ll e-mail you severance details”). I sent out about a dozen resumes, got two interviews, flunked the first and got an offer at the second - the whole process took about two weeks and I was no longer unemployed. I was on good terms with one of…
When you need 1 manager for every ~8-10 ICs, and one 2nd level manager for every ~8-10 first level managers, and so on, the jobs become fewer and further between the higher you go up. Management does not seem like the path of job security to me.
Right. It's a path to faster financial security though. Realistically, the amount of time it takes for them to find a new VP role is baked into the compensation.
Re: Programmers: Before you turn 40, get a plan B (2009)
#144Earlier quoted context omitted.
> the actual work of being a developer/programmer in a professional setting is a really shitty job and sad life The thing is, it doesn't have to be and, until relatively recently, honestly wasn't. It's a shitty job and a sad life because we have open offices, ticket-tracking systems and daily standups. There was a time when programming was exciting and rewarding.
The thing is, it doesn't have to be and, until relatively recently, honestly wasn't. Indeed. It's almost as if it's a bad idea to take people working in a field where creativity and careful thought are fundamental and a wide variety of experience with different but related ideas is often helpful and then try to turn them into interchangeable commodities with the whole process dumbed down to the level of the least com…
I love your comment and agree with everything you said.
I am a few years away from 40 as well, but as a freelance software developer who works remotely, I can only say I /love/ my job (most of the time) and hope to do it for many more years in this capacity.
Re: Programmers: Before you turn 40, get a plan B (2009)
#145I'm 50 and still programming. Programming is all I know how to do. If that was taken away from me, I would just rot to death. I don't want to be anything else, and I refuse to be forced to do something I don't want to do. I'll learn to farm and support myself that way. So, is it still preferable for the manager to not hire anyone and let the work sit undone rather than to be forced to work with a detestable "older" w…
I'm not sure I can think of a harder field to jump into in middle age than farming.
They probably meant farming on a backyard gardening level, I know plenty of people who got into it in middle age, particularly Mormons who try to be relatively self-sufficient. Not sure about the backyard size needed to actually support yourself though.
Re: Programmers: Before you turn 40, get a plan B (2009)
#146Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’m always mirin’ my current boss when he opens midnight commander and figures out the answer to his question by looking at the hex of the binary. I needed to change a string in a compiled binary and as I pulled the project down to change and compile from sources, he suggested we just patch the binary and we did in 1 minute with hexedit. I really don’t buy that skills don’t transfer. Where this is actually the case m…
"Mirin is a common staple used in Japanese cooking. It's a type of rice wine, similar to sake, but with a lower alcohol and higher sugar content." Unlikely this is what you meant. Admiring?
It is 100% a colloquialism..
Re: Programmers: Before you turn 40, get a plan B (2009)
#147Earlier quoted context omitted.
> the actual work of being a developer/programmer in a professional setting is a really shitty job and sad life The thing is, it doesn't have to be and, until relatively recently, honestly wasn't. It's a shitty job and a sad life because we have open offices, ticket-tracking systems and daily standups. There was a time when programming was exciting and rewarding.
The thing is, it doesn't have to be and, until relatively recently, honestly wasn't. Indeed. It's almost as if it's a bad idea to take people working in a field where creativity and careful thought are fundamental and a wide variety of experience with different but related ideas is often helpful and then try to turn them into interchangeable commodities with the whole process dumbed down to the level of the least com…
Yup. Gray-haired contracting life is a different beast altogether compared to being an employee.
Re: Programmers: Before you turn 40, get a plan B (2009)
#148I think this must be a US thing. There are plenty of older programmers in my current job. Probably helps that it is C++ and not something like Typescript, but still.
C++ is a skill that is in demand in the US as well, and age doesn't matter a bit, especially as many of the younger crowd can't or won't learn it.
Re: Programmers: Before you turn 40, get a plan B (2009)
#149This is generally true. It's a combination of many things, from brain "degradation", ageism, simple economic math ( fresh meat is cheaper and more malleable ), other more important interests like having a real life and when you really mute all the marketing BS, your delusions and wishful thinking, the actual work of being a developer/programmer in a professional setting is a really shitty job and sad life for the maj…
I’m sorry but if you think programming is not a “shitty job and a sad life.” While individuals certainly experience really bad situations in every walk of life, programming is an exceptionally valuable and versatile way to make a living, and offers a level of freedom and economic mobility that most people in most fields could only dream of.
While I'm aware and fully agree with your University of Phoenix pitch, please try to listen and understand that's only true given the right context ( both economic, social, time, etc. )
Most people sit at an office in front of a computer for at least 8 hours a day, some of them are developers. Most "problems" they "solve" are very distant from the "Changing the World and give meaning to your life, one PHP line at a time".
It's a great gig, but a sad life when you'll look back on your deathbed.
Re: Programmers: Before you turn 40, get a plan B (2009)
#150I'm not sure I'm buying that. The JVM ? Still rocking it 20 years after. Memory allocations pattern ? Still there. The network stack ? Well, doesn't seem to have changed a lot. The older guys, they seem like they had the time to correctly learn the unix network tools, the jvm debugging ones, the memory inspection ones. I've known older devs for which I have the utmost respect because I felt like they can just debug t…
Amen to all that. OA> Herein is the source of the problem. The more irrelevant experience a candidate has, the more lopsided the utility/value equation becomes… No, the source of the problem is the idea that 10 years of “C++ experience” is “irrelevant” to a project using Rails, as if development experience is somehow locked to the language you happened to do the development in. Being a valuable senior developer is ab…
I think a lot of problems some older developers have is that the culture has shifted. Maybe I'm off the mark, but I feel like older devs come from a world where programming was all about programming and it was less a formal career than it is now.
To succeed in programming, you have to work well in a business. You can't be Linus Torvalds, walking around with a big ego, unless you're so important it's hard to get rid of you.
You have to work with people well, and some of the older people I've worked with seem to understand this less.
Again, not an insult to older devs. Plenty of them are wonderful. And I could be completely wrong. Just an observation.