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

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

#301

Post by bad_user »

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…

> Observables are all the hype in javascript ? Well, great, I've learnt that pattern 15 years ago...

Well, the listener/observer pattern is used to explain observables in order to make them familiar, but no, it's not the same thing.

Observables are streams and you work with them the via composition of streams. When viewed from that high level, the underlying protocol (the observer) becomes irrelevant and in fact, if you're often finding yourself working with that protocol, you're doing it wrong.

People familiar with functional programming will be very familiar with this style, because composition is very natural to an FP developer and the composition of all kinds of streams is in the repertoire of FP developers.

But I've seen plenty of colleagues, who are otherwise very capable people, really struggle with the concepts involved. The mentality shift from the imperative programming that people have been taught, to describing actions via function composition and then doing evaluation "at the end of the world" is a mind fuck.

Interestingly, functional programming has been with us for some time, being older than Java.

However people are not interested in actual functional programming and more recently there's this trend to classify junk as FP, just because you've got a shitty API that takes functions (often doing side effects) as arguments to other functions, but that's not FP.

So going back to Observables, as a piece of advice, don't mention that in an interview ;-)

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

#302

Post by notJim »

jameshart wrote: post #35

There’s a trap in software dev careers. If you fall into it, you can really get stuck post 40. If you work at a small-ish dev organization - especially in-house dev in a non-tech company - you can rise pretty far and become pretty senior, and your indispensability can net you a decent income. But on the open job market those skills don’t transfer as well. The senior roles in small dev shops are filled by promoting fr…

Probably the best thing is to change around every couple of years. IMO, small/medium-but-growing companies offer the best opportunities to work on your technical skills, while larger companies offer the chance to grow your ability to navigate complex organizations.

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

#303

Post by zentiggr »

beat wrote: post #261
awakeasleep wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you miss the point about 'shelf life' The shelf life is due to a business decision, where the knowledge the older person has is deemed insufficient to justify the compensation they've grown used to. Sure, you love working with them and it's better for engineering, but the business wants college grads they can pay less, even if they don't do the same quality work. Importantly, this doesn't have to be logical o…

It's not just quality, it's capability. As I'm fond of saying, I may cost twice as much as an entry level engineer, but I can do things that two entry level engineers can't do.

As a former software guy, life long computer hacker, who moved to desktop support for years, I ran into new people hired as programmers who had to be coached to hit Ctrl-Alt-Del properly to log into their newly deployed laptop.

I'm working on hiring back into software roles now... I figure if the bar is that low, I can rock it out if I can just convince anyone that I can still code.

Interviews have been interesting.

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

#305

Post by notJim »

jknoepfler wrote: post #48

I don't know. I feel like there's a pretty clear power law governing the skill-ceiling below which additional experience adds actual value to dev work. ~80% of programming labor (testing, basic REST services, static web content, managing a small-to-medium-size SQL database, etc.) has a very low skill-ceiling. I've been in the industry for 7 years, I now run my own show doing all of these things. It's just simple grun…

> Conversely the skill-ceiling on managing technical projects is incredibly high.

You don't always have to go into management to follow this path though. At companies I've worked at, as you become more senior as an IC, your role expands from contributing locally on your team to contributing to the entire org. There is also often a split between the technical leadership and the people leadership on teams, which allows lead engineers and managers respectively to focus on each area.

IMO an underrated and difficult aspect of modern tech is figuring out technical practices that scale with team size, so that you can add more people without sacrificing quality, focus, speed, etc. I'd say microservices and continuous deployment are two examples of technical practices that address this, but there are more.

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

#306

Post by lioeters »

bontaq wrote: post #194
fastbeef wrote: post #58

The solution to this problem is as simple as it is revolting to programmers - realize that programming is a low-value task. The high-value task is solving business problems, if it happens so that programming is the easiest path then go for it. The real value to the business however, lies in domain expertise - something programmers are forced to become in order to be able to write code for it. The trick is to find a d…

What a statement, programming can be low value (not solving a business problem) or high value (solving a business problem).

Well, the topic here being the employability of programmers over 40, the statement seems fairly spot on as to how they will be judged - purely based on "business value".

[Business Value of Information Technology](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_value#Business_Value_...)

On the hand, programming (at least to me) is so much more. It's a creative activity like thinking or writing, it can be fun and "pointless" play, it can be insightful philosophically. Bringing productivity and efficiency to a business is one of the many applications of this medium of expression. I suppose by this point it's become a way of life, whether I'm solving a business problem or not.

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

#307

Post by p0nce »

commandlinefan wrote: post #17
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 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.

None of this is true if you work for yourself.

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

#308

Post by ericd »

PedroBatista wrote: post #168
edgarvaldes wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>the actual work of being a developer/programmer in a professional setting What is a "professional setting" in this context?

Sitting in front of a computer for years, trying to fix mundane problems, bugs, implement very important and urgent features that are very useless and not really urgent. You know, being the brick mason of yet another cathedral of delusions and failure as most business are. Which is life and I don't really have a problem with that. But we are all human and after a decade of this shit, it gets hollow and meaningless.

Why not try working on your own thing? Sounds like you're burned out on corporate work.

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

#309

Post by [deleted] »

bad_user wrote: post #301
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…

> Observables are all the hype in javascript ? Well, great, I've learnt that pattern 15 years ago... Well, the listener/observer pattern is used to explain observables in order to make them familiar, but no, it's not the same thing. Observables are streams and you work with them the via composition of streams. When viewed from that high level, the underlying protocol (the observer) becomes irrelevant and in fact, if…

[deleted]

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

#310

Post by kudokatz »

tempsy wrote: post #60

The strangeness of Silicon Valley right now is that if you're lucky you can "retire" long before 40. I'm 31 and have through a bit of luck accrued a small 7-figure net worth. I don't plan on being a "rank and file" employee by 33, let alone 40.

> The strangeness of Silicon Valley right now is that if you're lucky you can "retire" long before 40.

The entire Financial Independence (FI) movement is all about doing this everywhere (not just the valley) and without luck aside from household income around $45,000/yr in the US.

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