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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?

#81

Post by owenversteeg »

brians wrote: post #48

Knuth was being paid by Burroughs to implement an Algol-58 compiler in 1960. He’s still programming, and seems to have advice for others on the subject. But I don’t expect to see him here. Congratulations on being in that company, and may it long continue.

Partly cribbed from my comment downthread: I think I'd classify Knuth as the slightly different "longest working computer scientist". He's known for his quote "Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it."

Or perhaps I'd classify him as the somewhat more sycophantic "longest working genius" or "longest working cool guy". Heck, Knuth was uniquely awarded a master's degree for his bachelor's because his work was considered so outstanding, he's an organist and composer, and he's hilarious. I love this quote about him: "If you had an optimization function that was in some way a combination of warmth and depth, Don would be it."

A quote from him in an interview I found: "Indeed, as mentioned above, my life's work was to be a teacher."

Re: Ask HN: Am I the longest-serving programmer – 57 years and counting?

#84

Post by onemoresoop »

Congrats, you made it top 1 on HN! When we live in a world where experience is treated as baggage it is remarkable to find people in places like here to still appreciate it. I hope you will be able to enjoy your career until you decide yourself to retire! I think a lot of younger folks here, who are old by modern standards - I just turned 40 this year - are thirsty for some wisdom and lots of questions will be asked. And please don’t be offended if someone attacks you for some oppinion, this is the world we live in nowadays, someone’d find a fault in almost anything or anyone.

Re: Ask HN: Am I the longest-serving programmer – 57 years and counting?

#85

Post by karmakaze »

modwest wrote: post #19
karmakaze wrote: post #15

It 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

Let's say larger variance in life expectancy--we expect a longer tail of a new generation living longer.

Re: Ask HN: Am I the longest-serving programmer – 57 years and counting?

#88

Post by onemoresoop »

mikadel wrote: post #80

In my company, we can get "Senior Developer" title after 3 to 4 year experience. What your current title?

Real senior developers with lots of experience are usually shown the finger in our industry. There’s no such title to reflect 57 years of experience; i’ve heard it unofficially refered as baggage

Re: Ask HN: Am I the longest-serving programmer – 57 years and counting?

#90

Post by millstone »

Thank you, this is a wonderful post! Please share more of your story. (Write a book, please).

I would love to hear answers to the following:

1. What ideas proved useful throughout your career, and what ideas did you change your mind about?

2. What are your hobbies? Do you still program in your spare time - if so, what? Or do you find other outlets?

3. What went into the decision to go back to school? Did you get the PhD? If not, did you get burned out, or what lured you away?

4. What were the Big Ideas in software over your career that didn't work out? Any that were better than expected?

5. General successes/regrets/advice for these readers!

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