What a great post. It’s inspiring to know it’s possible to stay in this industry so long. Having read many stories of programmers having to retire early or switch into management or different careers, it’s wonderful to hear from someone who has kept going. Have you had any physical health challenges along the way such as RSI/arthritis? Im asking because I’m only in my mid 30s and already having difficulty with arthritis in my fingers.
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?
#222Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's a bit sad that people today still "fanboy" against a lang, like a lot of people still do for PHP (which has absolutely improved from the absurdity it was). JS followed the same path, ES2016 is an absolute dream to code on. Maybe I'm biased? PHP paid my bills for a long time and currently I'm a front-end developer that works mostly with Angular (but sometimes I jump into the .NET Core backends). I love JS and TS,…
PHP and Javascript both improved significantly, but both still have horrible legacy baggage that can't be rid of, namely weak typing (not dynamic, where a variable can hold any type, but weak, where "1"+2=3). For me, that makes programming in either language like running in a minefield. And still, I write Javascript daily, because myeusers don't care about weak typing :-)
Strong/weak and dynamic/static. JS is dynamic, but variables will always have a type, which is memory safe - which makes types strong.
Re: Ask HN: Am I the longest-serving programmer – 57 years and counting?
#223Every single person who calls you “inspirational” or “impressive” is actually revealing their own age prejudice. A programmer still programming while growing old is not something to marvel at, it is the normal state of things . Please do not allow people to put you on a pedestal; this would only strengthen the age prejudice present in the industry. Note: You deserve considerable respect and deference for the experien…
I'm 51 years old. It's still inspirational. :-)
Re: Ask HN: Am I the longest-serving programmer – 57 years and counting?
#224Earlier quoted context omitted.
She's the CEO of Hamilton Technologies: http://www.htius.com/
OP asked longest-serving programmer. That doesn't involve people who switched to management or some other position like CEO.
You don't know that. I have served as CEO and still coded every day.
Re: Ask HN: Am I the longest-serving programmer – 57 years and counting?
#225Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's the way he likes to paint himself. From a lecture he gave at my university I remember that he said something along the lines of, that he usually came up with the idea and others wrote the code. From the experience out of the same lecture, however, I can tell you first hand that he knows his way around code and that he can code. The lecture was indeed more of a hands on workshop with Knuth spending most of the…
Just because he can code doesn't mean he does on a daily basis for a day job, which is what this ask hn post is about no?
Knuth still does code basically on a daily basis. At least that's what he said in some interview (writing two complete programs per week on average, small and large, and that definitely qualifies him as software engineer among other things) and I have no reason to doubt it.
Re: Ask HN: Am I the longest-serving programmer – 57 years and counting?
#226Earlier quoted context omitted.
The point is that a language can evolve so much they are not even the same language. I prefer ES2016 to Python for example.
Numpy wouldn't work in JS because you can't overload operators afaik. Numpy/scipy are reasons why many people love Python.
It would work. All those overridden operators are just functions. It wouldn't be as concise or as intuitive though.
Re: Ask HN: Am I the longest-serving programmer – 57 years and counting?
#227Do you still type source code? How do you rate your mental agility versus your younger self?
So far I really haven't sensed any mental decrease, but I know there must be some. I do type some source code in Python and R, but primarily I use a rapid applications development tool that allows me to build custom machine learning algorithms and ad hoc analytics to work on big data.
I'm 30 now and my background is more in mathematics, so I do focus a lot on Python and R. A lot of my work is in statistics and also in agriculture. Hopefully, but the time I am your age, I will have some secret skills to teach the young folk. I hope to do more mathematics in my everyday work as I get older.
I just realised I need to walk my dog more often after the lockdowns are getting less strict!
Re: Ask HN: Am I the longest-serving programmer – 57 years and counting?
#228I am 80 years old and still working full time in IT. Although I evolved from pure programming to project management and business analysis the past few years. Originally started out working at Cape Canaveral as a radar and telemetry engineer and moved into programming after I left there. Whenever I interview, I completely ignore the age issue. If the interviewer is to dumb to recognize the value of my knowledge and ex…
I am sorry, but you are not a programmer anymore. You are a project manager or a business analyst.
The reason you are able to completely ignore the age issue is because there's no ageism in hiring business analysts and project managers. The ageism is visible in hiring programmers, which most certainly you are not.
You might "dabble" in code outside of work in your own spare time, but that doesn't make you a professional programmer, which is what this thread is about
Re: Ask HN: Am I the longest-serving programmer – 57 years and counting?
#229I am 80 years old and still working full time in IT. Although I evolved from pure programming to project management and business analysis the past few years. Originally started out working at Cape Canaveral as a radar and telemetry engineer and moved into programming after I left there. Whenever I interview, I completely ignore the age issue. If the interviewer is to dumb to recognize the value of my knowledge and ex…
How do you find your brain works and how productive you are compared to say 20 years ago? My father is in his late 70s and gets quite tired during his day - I wonder if you keep working it keeps the brain more active.
Also it must be weird going to a retirement party for someone who is 15 years younger than you :D
Re: Ask HN: Am I the longest-serving programmer – 57 years and counting?
#230Earlier quoted context omitted.
I sit in an office chair (tilted back slightly) with 3 large HD monitors about 3 feet from my eyes - I have special glasses for that range. The monitors can be switched among 3 computers, and the wireless keyboard/mouse has a switch to move from one computer to another. Most importantly, I have a dog that needs walking several times a day, and that forces me to get up and walk a couple miles every day.
I have the same 3 monitor, 'computer glasses' setup... Did your optometrist give you grief about them? The first time I said I wanted a pair of single focus lenses for the computer (so I could use my whole field of view..), I got a lot of flak about "you should get bifocals". I haven't needed to drive anywhere in the last couple of years, so I basically never where my distance glasses anymore. lately though.. Seems l…
For myself, it was my optometrist's idea. I get one "free" pair a year from my vision coverage, and when a year rolled in where my old prescription hadn't changed much, he suggested getting computer glasses instead.
My only problem is forgetting to change glasses when I go out, and not really noticing til I hit a main road and wonder why the street signs are blurry.