I think it's awesome that you have had a long career and still going. I know of one gentleman in a similar situation. I think he may be in his late 70's or even early 80's. He's currently working on porting some Fortran or Cobol code he wrote in his 20's from his first job ever!
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?
#72given 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.
while not as old as OP, I personally know several programmers in their 50s and 60s and all said they had no problem finding work. I think if you're a top-tier developer (which OP seems to be!) age discrimination may not be as much of a factor? If you're decent but not amazing (most of us honestly) you may find it easier to find work at 35 than at 55.
I'm 52 and am just starting to look around. Given that I primarily want world-wide remote (I live in Japan), it may be a tad difficult. However, I had no trouble at all attracting interest in my mid 40's when I went to London for a couple of years. It took me less than a month to land a job and I had a couple of options.
My biggest piece of advice to anyone who wants a long technical career is to keep learning new things. Don't rely on your day job to train you in what you need. Follow up on stuff that interests you and invest some of your "me" time on staying current in areas that interest you. I've seen a lot of people drop out of the industry because they were over specialised. I know APL experts, Cobol and DB2 experts, C++ with MFC experts, etc, etc. None of them are working as programmers any more. It's tempting to thing that Java enterprise and C# and Ruby on Rails and Python and whatever you think is the best paycheck will last forever. It won't and over time you will slowly become obsolete. A 40 something (or 50 something) with no relevant technology experience will be seen as less valuable than a 30 something because people will be imagining you are simply going through the motions. The fact that you aren't getting sucked into the new (and horrible) programming fads makes you even less attractive because the people hiring you have been pulled into those fads. So it's important to be able to speak the speak and walk the walk.
Re: Ask HN: Am I the longest-serving programmer – 57 years and counting?
#73I thought I was an old timer, with my Fortran 77 experience. But Fortran II! If it followed the naming convention, that was from 1902, right?
Welcome to Hacker News. They don't always treat us graybeards well so you'll need to be tough.
Re: Ask HN: Am I the longest-serving programmer – 57 years and counting?
#74What do you think about all of the advances that happened in your time, especially with what machine learning is capable of these days (fully artificial human faces, for one)? Any advice (technical or life) for us younger people?
Please don't say implementing JavaScript on punchcards.
Re: Ask HN: Am I the longest-serving programmer – 57 years and counting?
#75Mate first of all my huge huge respect to you for keeping at it. This is true passion and I really really wish that see more of it. I hope you are doing what you enjoy for another 50 years at least!!!
Re: Ask HN: Am I the longest-serving programmer – 57 years and counting?
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
"longer life expectancy" is a very optimistic thing to say
I don't know if it's particularly optimistic - if you're (accurately) saying current life expectancy numbers don't take catastrophic risks into account, neither did calculations of life expectancy back then. Unless you think there is a higher risk of catastrophic events now than there was during the cold war.
Life expectancy has plateaued and may be trending down in the U.S. The culprit is likely obesity. (See https://time.com/5100737/obesity-lowering-life-expectancy-un... )
Re: Ask HN: Am I the longest-serving programmer – 57 years and counting?
#77[deleted]
Re: Ask HN: Am I the longest-serving programmer – 57 years and counting?
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
while not as old as OP, I personally know several programmers in their 50s and 60s and all said they had no problem finding work. I think if you're a top-tier developer (which OP seems to be!) age discrimination may not be as much of a factor? If you're decent but not amazing (most of us honestly) you may find it easier to find work at 35 than at 55.
I'm 52 and am just starting to look around. Given that I primarily want world-wide remote (I live in Japan), it may be a tad difficult. However, I had no trouble at all attracting interest in my mid 40's when I went to London for a couple of years. It took me less than a month to land a job and I had a couple of options. My biggest piece of advice to anyone who wants a long technical career is to keep learning new th…
So what are the MFC experts doing nowadays?
Anyway that's precisely the problem - either get sucked into all the horrible fads or not finding a job. That's a pretty bad choice.
Re: Ask HN: Am I the longest-serving programmer – 57 years and counting?
#79That is wonderful! Hey I'm from Florida too! (I assume you've at least been there since you mentioned FAU) :) You are doing what I hope to: code even if I 'retire' I intend to code till the day I can't anymore.
Welcome to HN! It's a great place, has a few things I don't like here or there, but overall a great place to learn all sorts of things and learn about all sorts of people from varying backgrounds.
Re: Ask HN: Am I the longest-serving programmer – 57 years and counting?
#80In my company, we can get "Senior Developer" title after 3 to 4 year experience.
What your current title?