Earlier 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.
Once a coder, always a coder.
Ask HN: Am I the longest-serving programmer – 57 years and counting?
421–430 of 555 posts
Re: Ask HN: Am I the longest-serving programmer – 57 years and counting?
#422Margaret Hamilton started her first job in 1959 and is still working: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Hamilton_(software_en... Depending how and whether you count academia, Donald Knuth may have a slightly longer career: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Knuth Feels like a decent chance you're third, then. Certainly you're one of the longest-working programmers. Best of luck. :)
Trygve Reenskaug is still working on programming.
Re: Ask HN: Am I the longest-serving programmer – 57 years and counting?
#423I 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?
I would also be fascinated to learn this. Liked the idea for several years of gaining a PhD, but I just couldn't imagine taking three or more years out of my career at this point. The only vaguely-related anecdata I have is from my mother, in a completely different field, who was a nursery school teacher (kindergarten to our friends across the pond) with a strong emphasis on creative development, but only after retirement at 65 did she actually go to university and get herself a fine arts degree. Now she potters away in her little studio every day and will probably not be in any danger of losing her marbles.
Re: Ask HN: Am I the longest-serving programmer – 57 years and counting?
#424Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd be very curious too. My son's university is proposing to do the next year (mostly) remote, which sounds like a perfect way for me to go back for a couple of classes too. I always wanted more letters after my name.
> I always wanted more letters after my name. This is a really bad reason to do a degree, if you want my unsolicited opinion.
If you're going to become a post hole digger, it can only help you if you don't take things too seriously. :)
Re: Ask HN: Am I the longest-serving programmer – 57 years and counting?
#425Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think current gigs want younger people not for their performance but their „price”. They work overtime without payment, are relatively cheap and you need alot of them. For every architect you have in the company there are like 20-30 developers of lower grade. So the demand for „design making” people is just not there.
The industry has been very biased; from 1940 there weren't many programmers, very quickly the number of programmers doubled, most had little experience. Through the 1970s there weren't many programmers with more than 5 years experience. As the number grew so fast, through the 1980s most programmers still had less than 5 years experience. Same through the 1990s. Probably still the same through the 2000s and 2010s and…
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Re: Ask HN: Am I the longest-serving programmer – 57 years and counting?
#426Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd be very curious too. My son's university is proposing to do the next year (mostly) remote, which sounds like a perfect way for me to go back for a couple of classes too. I always wanted more letters after my name.
> I always wanted more letters after my name. This is a really bad reason to do a degree, if you want my unsolicited opinion.
That depends a lot on where you live. In Austria, for example, where I lived for several years, academic titles carry a strong social cachet and are used absolutely everywhere - on your credit card, bills from the city council for cleaning out your bins etc. People with more than one PhD will be addressed as Dr Dr Firstname Surname, someone with a regular engineering degree is allowed to refer to themselves as Ing. Surname instead of Herr/Frau. It's a really big deal.
Re: Ask HN: Am I the longest-serving programmer – 57 years and counting?
#427Earlier quoted context omitted.
Continuing programming != continuing being an employee, working for others.
What's wrong with working for others? Similarly, what's the point of programming (or of any work, I suppose) if it isn't helping someone?
Not all jobs are the same or similarly enjoyable. E.g. instead of working on CRUD apps for the rest of the life, one might prefer working on a Rust interpreter in Haskell or a Gameboy emulator in Prolog - would be hard to find such 9-to-5 jobs - and after all, one might not want 9-to-5 schedule at all.
In other words - one might want freedom, basically.
As for not helping someone - programming can be recreational, just for the sake of enjoyment.
Re: Ask HN: Am I the longest-serving programmer – 57 years and counting?
#428Earlier 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…
That's interesting. In the UK, it's pretty much standard. In fact I think (IANAL) that employment law mandates that the company has to pay for your amusingly-named "VDU" glasses if the majority of your work is in front of a screen and the optometrist says you need them. I got some recently and it's changed my life after several uncomfortable years of peering at odd angles through varifocals.
Re: Ask HN: Am I the longest-serving programmer – 57 years and counting?
#429Earlier quoted context omitted.
+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.
I did my Master’s part-time at DePaul University with almost all of the program online while I was working. They have an AI track but I am not sure how good it is.
Do you think it was worth it? Did you like the program?
Re: Ask HN: Am I the longest-serving programmer – 57 years and counting?
#430Thank 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…
That's a lot of questions, but let me take a couple. I got my Master's degrees in the early 1970's, when we used something called a "slide rule". In 1990 I went back to school to update my skills and expand my knowledge into artificial intelligence, which I had become enamored with. Unfortunately, I didn't finish my PhD (big mistake!) because in 1995 I jumped on an opportunity to join a company that had this amazing…