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

improvingsoftware.com

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

#231

Post by blub »

rossdavidh wrote: post #216

I started working as a programmer, and for all practical purposes started programming, at age 37. I'm over 50 now. The vast majority of my professional career has been spent in violation of this article's thesis. https://www.rosshartshorn.net/RossHartshornResume.pdf A better take on it would be, "don't expect to be able to avoid learning new stuff every few years, just like younger devs".

I love learning new stuff that builds on what I know and increases my understanding of the world, but this is not what's usually happening in SW, where it's common to have to learn a different version of the old stuff because the market shifted.

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

#232

Post by irq11 »

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…

It’s practically a trope that every time this subject comes up, the top-rated comment is a skeptical response...from a junior developer.

As someone who actually has worked as a programmer on the far side of 40, let me assure you that yes, older programmers have value. Your perceptions are not wrong. But that said, the article is right. The people who do the hiring and firing do not care about what you care about.

As the article noted clearly, the marginal benefit of an older engineer has to exceed the marginal costs. And if we’re being honest, the fact that a graybeard can use tcpdump without reading the docs carries little marginal benefit. Guess what, kid? You’ll figure it out, and you’ll do it quickly enough that the total cost of your learning won’t really compare to the cost of hiring me.

That’s why you see lots of anecdotes about the value of older engineers, but lots of articles from older engineers who know that the discrimination is real. And this is coming from someone who has managed to “stay relevant” a lot longer than most software devs.

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

#233

Post by theflyinghorse »

waynecochran wrote: post #212

That's why I told my students when I was a professor -- don't become a "programmer" become a "computer scientist." Could Alan Turing get a job if he was still alive?

Depends, what's his experience with Kubernetes, go, and graphql?

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

#234

Post by _bxg1 »

commandlinefan wrote: post #59
_bxg1 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What subfield do you work in? Size of company, languages/technologies, etc.

Mostly Java, but I went from a small healthcare-based company to a huge entertainment company - there's really no similarity there.

Yeah; I get the sense that Java is one of the more reliable (if unsexy) domains to embed yourself in. It's really turning into the new Cobol.

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

#235

Post by BuckRogers »

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…

I went "full software" back at the age of 36. I did this because I saw the writing on the wall for systems/devops and being a half-developer, essentially from writing scripts to full OOP.

I put a ton of time and thought, and effort into the change. It wasn't easy to complete the transition and get hired, but I settled on C#. Chosen because C# and Java are similar enough (my only formal education in programming was in Java), and I could move between the two, if I had to. I also saw MS driving the future of .Net really hard, even after about 10 years before it looked like there was no future and MS was going back to unmanaged code. I also wanted as stable of a development platform as possible, an attempt at avoiding churn with all the kiddos in the web space. I'm still working fulltime as a C# dev and enjoy it. But if anything ever happens, I'll jump ship to the Java space. Both the city I live in and less-populated state that I'm from have copious amount of C# and Java jobs available, so I'm not on something so cutting edge that I have to live somewhere specific. It's my opinion that the best balance for most software projects was nailed with Java (and then it's descendent, C#). There's a reason it's so popular and they're not bad reasons.

My dream job is to come full circle and be "the IT guy" at a small company, handling software and systems as a one-man operation. That can be done in the MS space, as less expertise is necessary in general on the systems side to manage the entire stack. Even less so with Azure.

Will I be pushed out? I'm sure. I'm expecting less of a shelf life than the old hats because so many more people are raising their children to be ready for this field. Also, outsourcing/visa migration was fully implemented to diminish the industry for workers, since about 2000. The industry that was supposed to be the next buoy of the American middle class has been successfully undermined by American hypercapitalism. Greatly reducing prospects and the future for even my generation, the golden generation of children that grew up on a Commodore. A special time of astute technologists raised when we had personal computers at home, but before iOS collapsed the barrier of entry and nullified the mystery & effort required to get to entertainment.

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

#236

Post by max_effort »

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…

I worked a consulting gig with a 60yo who had just learned Objective-C so he could do mobile work. This was in 2013.

I guess if it’s a seed round company with a 22yo founder they might have some bias. But the rest of the world absolutely needs devs of any age.

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

#237

Post by sbov »

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…

Also, most languages are not sinking ships. Certain uses of them are of course. But even languages this site hates, such as C, C++, C#, and Java have very long lives ahead of them for certain uses. Obviously C++ vs Rails... well, you're going to be out of a job. But if you were using C++ for the sorts of things you would have used Rails in 2009 you were already a decade or so behind the curve.

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

#238

Post by mattmanser »

wpietri wrote: post #94
mothsonasloth wrote: post #50

The article uses Ruby on Rails as an argument from 2009, saying the 10 years of C++ development is no longer relevant. Apart from that statement not really ageing well, it doesn't really make sense as there will always be a consistent demand for C++ for embedded etc., likewise Java for enterprise, as they are mature and proven technologies in instutitions. Just as there is an established market for RoR with companies…

I think you're making the author's point. Java at this point is the new COBOL. C++ has gone from important mainstream language to narrow niche. Ruby on Rails is on the same declining curve, just not as far along; much of the excitement has shifted to Node, React etc. Demand for old languages isn't consistent. It declines over time as code bases get replaced. A programmer betting that they will die before their chosen…

I met a COBOL contract programmer 15 years ago. At the time he made a lot of money from it because there were few left, no new work, but maintaing old code bases.

Java today, OTOH, is nowhere near that point yet. People still build plenty of new things in Java and it's easy to search a job site and see tons of Java jobs. The JVM is widely used and no-one will blink twice if you want to build something on it.

I don't see them as comparable at all.

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

#239

Post by samsonradu »

celticmusic wrote: post #192
convolvatron wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with your premise but not your reasons. personally I'm a programmer - I know enough about business to know I don't have good insight. everyone I talk to doesn't want* a programmer in the older sense. they want people to integrate external large packages. they don't want to to test, they want to prop something up and see if it makes money. they don't want to talk about architecture and features and make plans…

I agree with you. I recently started working on a project in which the company had outsourced it to a wordpress shop, despite it not being a wordpress site. fast forward a few years and no one fully trusts the software so everything it does gets checked/verified by a human, and they're actually hiring people because the workload is too much. So they brought it in-house, which is where I come in. And let me tell you,…

Ah, speaking of code snippet of the day. Found someone’s code trying to check if a promo-code is already used, and if not to apply it:

    $codes = $db->exec(‘SELECT code from promocode’);
    if (!in_array($myCode, $codes)){
        // use it
    }
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