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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?

#311

Post by genedangelo »

dang wrote: post #104
genedangelo wrote: post #51

Wow! I appreciate all the interest and feedback - quite unexpected. I'm glad I found HN. I'll try to add more responses tomorrow.

(I'm a moderator here. Welcome to HN!) Because you're likely to get a flood of comments and questions overnight, I've switched an alpha feature on for your account that will highlight new comments that have appeared since you last viewed the page. They'll show up with a colored bar to the left of the comment. The feature doesn't work perfectly yet, but hopefully it'll help you keep track of what's been posted since y…

I haven't been able to find the colored bar, maybe because of refreshes, but let me suggest you use something that is searchable. That way you could use CTRL-F and then jump from one to the next. Right now, I'm searching for " min" (note the space) to find the most recent posts, and "1 hour", "2 hour" etc. to find older ones.

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

#312

Post by marstall »

intpete wrote: post #269

Not looking to compete for the crown, but I have been involved with software development on and off since 1970. I started college in 1969, and really loved my liberal arts and social science courses, but began having panic attacks in class (I found out many years later that I was bipolar). My hail Mary move was switching majors to 'Business Data Processing'. My thought being that programming would give me a salable s…

Thanks for sharing ... how did you manage the panic attacks in the end?

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

#313

Post by Mary-Jane »

paulcole wrote: post #304
mromanuk wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are you not yet retired? I can think of few strong reasons, but I would love to hear from you. (I started programming at 8, I’m 41 and I have no plans of stopping )

It’s like in Shawshank. First you can’t stand the bars, then you get used to them, then you can’t live without them. After 50+ years of structured work people forget how to be in charge of themselves.

Or, more optimistically, if you love what you do you'll never work a day in your life. I love programming too and have no plans on stopping either.

And there's nothing wrong with that.

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

#314

Post by heavenlyblue »

pedrocx486 wrote: post #154
lerax wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. Coding JS on keyboard is already bad enough.

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 paid my bills” is the same argument as “NHS saved my life” in the UK

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

#315

Post by onemoresoop »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #182
onemoresoop wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who cares about the money when one has an ounce of passion for it

Because you need money to eat and pay rent and most importantly provide for your family or offspring if you have any.

Yeah, I didn’t mean working for free, but working on a less glamorous salary with all the other human perks is sometimes just fine, especially if one’s done raising kids and does work to fulfil the calling

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

#316

Post by 7thaccount »

philtar wrote: post #288
pscoutou wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not OP and not in their age group but I would say it comes down to either genetics, lifestyle choices or combination of both. I made a bunch of lifestyle choices (lost weight, keto diet, being more active, less screen time at night, etc). As a result I've noticed a significant increase in energy levels and mental clarity.

Not to be rude but: > Not OP and not in their age group Then why are you answering?

Even if not in their age group, it is still applicable. Someone in their 80's that has eaten right and excercises and gotten good sleep for 80 years probably has significantly more energy than someone who did the wrong things.

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

#317

Post by jt2190 »

Kinrany wrote: post #270
chrisweekly wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you really care so much, why not simply embrace TypeScript?

TypeScript is awesome compared to JavaScript and even to other popular C-like languages. But it inherits all of the problems of the JS ecosystem without providing all of the benefits. To make a JS package consumable by a reasonably strict TS project, someone has to basically rewrite the package. It's less effort than writing one from scratch, but it's not free.

> To make a JS package consumable by a reasonably strict TS project...

I’m not sure what you mean by “strict” here... Certainly one can use JavaScript from TypeScript, and even provide type information for the JS with declaration files. [1] Does a “strict” project require something beyond this?

[1] “Declaration Files”, TypeScript Handbook https://www.typescriptlang.org/docs/handbook/declaration-fil...

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

#318

Post by genedangelo »

dleslie wrote: post #61
genedangelo wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Do you consider what you do to be programming? How does it compare to, say, hand-writing C?

There is no doubt what I do is programming. It's similar in some ways to SQL, but the tool I use enables me to implement much more complexity than possible in plain SQL. It actually enables a lot of the functionality available in a procedural language like C, but within a structure built around database manipulations and joins. In this way it breaks the bounds of memory constraints and becomes a big data programming language. Admittedly, I don't have to type out individual commands, but that's a good thing. The logic is the same, but the development time is much less. It enables you to concentrate more on the algorithm design while the command syntax and other minutiae are handled in a much more efficient (and maintainable) manner.

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

#319

Post by manish_gill »

jkingsbery wrote: post #236
pxsant wrote: post #212

I 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 did you go about getting your phd? Did you take a break from paid work to go to school? Did you work on your thesis nights/ weekends? Do you feel like you learned from your advisors, some if whom I'd imagine were younger than you? Did you study an area related to your work at the time? Or did you use it to learn a new area?

+1 I'm deeply interested. Been thinking a lot about doing a Masters in AI/ML but I'd rather not stop working. Been considering part time masters programs but finding them is tricky.

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

#320

Post by kizer »

pxsant wrote: post #212

I 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…

Good for you! At 14 I was hooked, and knew that this - programming, IT, technology - was for me. I can see myself in your shoes some day. The "outside world" just doesn't get the allure sometimes ;).

As a twenty-something, I'd love to work along side an "old timer". Many of the abstractions and technologies change in our field, but just as many foundational concepts stay constant. I'm sure I would learn so much.

Best of luck to you.

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