Where do you work now? And also, I've heard that at Google for example, there is prejudice against older programmers? Have you experienced anything like that?
Ask HN: Am I the longest-serving programmer – 57 years and counting?
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Re: Ask HN: Am I the longest-serving programmer – 57 years and counting?
#12No, probably not the longest-serving, though maybe longest-serving who is on HN. Also: 74 - 57 = 17 years of age when you started as a full time programmer. How did you pull that off in 1963?
Keep on, however, and soon I'm sure you will be the longest serving.
Re: Ask HN: Am I the longest-serving programmer – 57 years and counting?
#13Grace Hopper apparently retired from the navy when she was _80_. And then went into consulting. So you’ve a few years to go yet.
Re: Ask HN: Am I the longest-serving programmer – 57 years and counting?
#14No, probably not the longest-serving, though maybe longest-serving who is on HN. Also: 74 - 57 = 17 years of age when you started as a full time programmer. How did you pull that off in 1963?
I actually was only 16, but turned 17 right after I started. I had finished all the math and science courses in my high school in Mississippi and I had a lot of extra time in my senior year. As a junior, I scored the highest in the U.S. on an engineering aptitude test and got a write-up in the local paper. Mitchell Engineering was trying to get into computers but didn't know how to find people who could program. When…
Wonderful to hear that, and congratulations to you for that accomplishment. I worry those type of opportunities are no more, or at least much rarer.
Re: Ask HN: Am I the longest-serving programmer – 57 years and counting?
#15It just occurred to me how interesting it will be for the new generation who start so much younger and longer life expectancy what they'll see in their long careers. Given how much has changed in your story, from Fortran to AlphaZero and GPT-2. How much will change in theirs? Will the singularity appear to be in sight? Will programmers disappear like telephone operators?
Re: Ask HN: Am I the longest-serving programmer – 57 years and counting?
#16I'm at 50 years (so far).
Re: Ask HN: Am I the longest-serving programmer – 57 years and counting?
#17Where do you work now? And also, I've heard that at Google for example, there is prejudice against older programmers? Have you experienced anything like that?
Yes. The term used is "not a good cultural fit".
Re: Ask HN: Am I the longest-serving programmer – 57 years and counting?
#18given the numerous posts about age discrimination on hn, i'm delighted to hear your story and wish you many more years of happy programming. as a whipper-snapper 40-something developer, it gives me hope and motivation.
Re: Ask HN: Am I the longest-serving programmer – 57 years and counting?
#19It just occurred to me how interesting it will be for the new generation who start so much younger and longer life expectancy what they'll see in their long careers. Given how much has changed in your story, from Fortran to AlphaZero and GPT-2. How much will change in theirs? Will the singularity appear to be in sight? Will programmers disappear like telephone operators?
"longer life expectancy" is a very optimistic thing to say
Re: Ask HN: Am I the longest-serving programmer – 57 years and counting?
#20Grace Hopper apparently retired from the navy when she was _80_. And then went into consulting. So you’ve a few years to go yet.
I hope to make 80 - not sure my health will hold up. I did see the article on Grace Hopper on Wikipedia. She began her computing career in 1944 and she died in 1992, so that's a maximum of only 48 years. On that measure, I have her beat by 9 years already.