Programmers: Before you turn 40, get a plan B (2009) • Hacker News Board

Re: Programmers: Before you turn 40, get a plan B (2009)

#171

Post by bachmeier » Fri, Aug 02, 2019, 5:35 PM UTC

sokoloff wrote: post #130

bachmeier wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just want to nitpick on a couple of these: > brain "degradation" At 40? If you're suffering from loss of mental capabilities to the point that it affects your performance at work at 40 , you have medical issues that need immediate attention. > simple economic math ( fresh meat is cheaper and more malleable ) I've seen this stated many times, but nothing is forcing anyone to offer a particular salary or demand a parti…

Not sure that I agree on the first point. In my 20s, I could easily work 12 hour days, keep tons of complex state in my head, and almost never walked into a room and wondered why I went there (both literally and in the programming metaphorical equivalent). In my 40s, much of that has changed. I'm beat mentally after a 6-7 hour day of coding. I can only keep smaller portions of the system in my head easily. It's possi…

It's hard to deny that one's memory deteriorates before age 40. But does it really matter that much to job performance? I'm not sure, but then I'm not a professional software developer, so that might explain our differing views.

I do have to disagree about the number of hours worked being a sign of mental degradation. I'd call that physical degradation, and to be honest, I'm able to work longer days now than when I was 30. Everyone's mileage will vary on that, though.

For me, what dominates everything else wrt mental performance is that I'm much more efficient at learning things now than I was in grad school 20 years ago. Whether it's a new technology, a mathematical proof, or reading someone else's source code, I'm massively more productive than I was at 25. If anything causes me problems, it's that I enjoy learning new things too much, and I spend less time than I should doing the work that pays the bills.

Re: Programmers: Before you turn 40, get a plan B (2009)

#172

Post by PedroBatista » Fri, Aug 02, 2019, 5:36 PM UTC

ErikAugust wrote: post #87

PedroBatista wrote: post #9

This 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…

"The actual work of being a developer/programmer in a professional setting is a really shitty job and sad life for the majority of people on those jobs." I'd love to give you a tour of what people do for work, and then you can personally decide how bad programming is as a profession.

Funnily enough, there's a good chance I know more about it than you.

I just don't use other people's tremendous shitty jobs to glorify mine.

Re: Programmers: Before you turn 40, get a plan B (2009)

#173

Post by scarface74 » Fri, Aug 02, 2019, 5:36 PM UTC

C4stor wrote: post #46

I'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…

Yes. But as the article said, there is a diminishing amount of value after every year of true experience after a number of years. I would say around 10.

I definitely don’t believe in the “10x Engineer” (individual contributor) - yes they do exist but are so rare they aren’t worth talking about. I do believe in being a force multiplier as a team lead/mentor.

Re: Programmers: Before you turn 40, get a plan B (2009)

#174

Post by Shebanator » Fri, Aug 02, 2019, 5:36 PM UTC

wpietri wrote: post #74

Reason077 wrote: post #8

While I’ve no doubt that age discrimination does exist, when you see people who are former programmers at 40 (or 30 for that matter) it’s often just that they started out in programming but got bored of it and moved on to other careers. Or gradually became managers rather than programmers. Statistics may certainly show that programmers skew young, but its not always due to being forced out, or denied opportunities, b…

I don't think those are cleanly separable. When you talk with people who left the industry, it's very rarely, "I was successful and engaged and really enjoying it, so I decided to switch to something entirely different where I had to start over and earn a lot less." For a lot of people who experience discrimination, it's not one big blow-up that forces them out. It's the steady drip-drip-drip of being treated poorly,…

And sometimes when people aren't that good at their jobs, they blame external causes instead of accepting responsibility for their own performance. (Note: I do realize that discrimination and bad managers are real things, but then again so is the Dunning–Kruger effect.)

Re: Programmers: Before you turn 40, get a plan B (2009)

#175

Post by Benjammer » Fri, Aug 02, 2019, 5:36 PM UTC

PedroBatista wrote: post #9

This 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…

>the actual work of being a developer/programmer in a professional setting is a really shitty job and sad life

Compared to what? Have you ever worked manual labor, retail, food service industry, etc?

Re: Programmers: Before you turn 40, get a plan B (2009)

#176

Post by mr_overalls » Fri, Aug 02, 2019, 5:37 PM UTC

asdfman123 wrote: post #135

C4stor wrote: post #46

I'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…

Yeah, you hear all these horror stories about how developers have a "shelf life." In the meantime, though, every single older developer I've met has been extremely knowledgeable and frankly much better at the craft than myself. Look at any hobby -- say, guitar playing. The difference between someone who's been doing it for 4 years and someone who's been doing it 20 years is ridiculous. They're so much better. I feel…

> every single older developer I've met has been extremely knowledgeable

To be fair, this observation could be massively influenced by survivorship bias - more talented devs tend to be the ones still programming in older age.

Re: Programmers: Before you turn 40, get a plan B (2009)

#177

Post by jf22 » Fri, Aug 02, 2019, 5:38 PM UTC

bachmeier wrote: post #91

PedroBatista wrote: post #9

This 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…

Just want to nitpick on a couple of these: > brain "degradation" At 40? If you're suffering from loss of mental capabilities to the point that it affects your performance at work at 40 , you have medical issues that need immediate attention. > simple economic math ( fresh meat is cheaper and more malleable ) I've seen this stated many times, but nothing is forcing anyone to offer a particular salary or demand a parti…

> I've seen this stated many times, but nothing is forcing anyone to offer a particular salary or demand a particular salary.

What do you mean by this comment?

Younger people are willing to work for less and I don't see how your comment relates to that idea.

Re: Programmers: Before you turn 40, get a plan B (2009)

#178

Post by scarface74 » Fri, Aug 02, 2019, 5:38 PM UTC

wrs wrote: post #80

C4stor wrote: post #46

I'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…

Being a valuable senior developer is about 10% what technology you know and about 90% how good you are at working in a team to solve a business problem with a machine, and those fundamental skills haven’t changed much since 1960.

That’s true. But if you haven’t learned that in 10-15 years - there is something wrong. That means the difference between someone with 15 years and 30 years would be marginal.

Re: Programmers: Before you turn 40, get a plan B (2009)

#179

Post by zzzcpan » Fri, Aug 02, 2019, 5:39 PM UTC

asdfman123 wrote: post #135

C4stor wrote: post #46

I'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…

Yeah, you hear all these horror stories about how developers have a "shelf life." In the meantime, though, every single older developer I've met has been extremely knowledgeable and frankly much better at the craft than myself. Look at any hobby -- say, guitar playing. The difference between someone who's been doing it for 4 years and someone who's been doing it 20 years is ridiculous. They're so much better. I feel…

> As long as you get off the sinking ship of technologies that are obviously waning

But then you would have to compete with young people starting out in the same technologies. And they are more naive, more easily manipulated and exploited, corporations love that and prefer that to 20 year experience in the field they can't even understand could be important to all the new technologies.

Re: Programmers: Before you turn 40, get a plan B (2009)

#180

Post by lifeisstillgood » Fri, Aug 02, 2019, 5:40 PM UTC

Firstly I am a proponent of the idea of software as a new form of literacy - it is eating the world and as such if you are literate you run rings round the illiterate - no matter what your age.

But

companies are pyramids - and some roles (like sales) mean their value to the company can be measured on an individual basis. But most roles cannot - and the further away from the customer you are the more it is true

As such the only metric available is "number of people reporting to you"

It would be nice to find some other metric - there may not be one.

As such the push away from coding into management is inexorable. if we look at highly literate companies (say Washington Post) then the managing editor spends most time not writing but managing (with some reading involved)

to;dr - we have two antagonistic forces - being software literate is for now a force multiplier so why would you not keep doing it? But most organisations can only measure management ladders - so if you want pay or security you climb.

Perhaps the book "Developer Hegemony" offers some answers?