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On finally learning to program at the age of 40

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Re: On finally learning to program at the age of 40

#121

Post by asdfman123 »

azangru wrote: post #103

Sigh. Every new blog posts of someone finding joy in Rust makes me think there's something wrong with me. I started with Ruby, then migrated to JavaScript, then was introduced to the joy of static types, first with Flow, then with TypeScript — and now I'm stuck. Dynamically typed languages, including Ruby, Python, or PHP, terrify me; I can't understand people singing praises to Python. OCaml looks ... ugly. Rust look…

No, nothing wrong with you. People are just interested in different things.

I love posts that geek out over low level memory stuff, but I literally avoided learning ANY Javascript framework until this year, to the detriment of many former interviews.

Neither is better. The most important thing you can do is expose yourself to a lot of different influences and then just drill down into what you're interested in, without having to justify it or apologize for it.

It's amazing where following your real interests will lead you, and the world that it will reveal to you. If you instead try to force-feed yourself, you won't learn much, because you won't stick to it.

Re: On finally learning to program at the age of 40

#122

Post by asdfman123 »

holidayacct wrote: post #105
conjectures wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Over time it can cause damage to the ventral what pathway to the point of complete speech impediment, memory loss and even Alzheimers. This sounds like complete guff to me. Citation sorely needed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expressive_aphasia Speak to a neuroscientist if you don't believe me.

Please link to an article explaining your claims, because the wikipedia articles you're linking to don't describe anything you're talking about.

I'm actually curious because it's an interesting proposition, even if I'm very skeptical.

Re: On finally learning to program at the age of 40

#123

Post by ausjke »

I would focus on one field and go deeper, be it c,c++,python,javascript...I have been programming for many years, looking back, lots of time spending on learning many different things at different times, which is bad actually. If I can do it again, I will focus more on one or two areas and excel there.

A neurosurgeon or heart doctor earns way more than a family doctor, the former is specialist and the latter is knowing-it-all-but-nothing-in-particular.

Re: On finally learning to program at the age of 40

#124

Post by tannhauser23 »

m0zg wrote: post #48
darkteflon wrote: post #12

I'm in this boat. Finally started programming in 2018 at age 38 after a lifetime of playing around with computers as a hobby (thanks, dad!) and a first career in a completely unrelated field, as an attorney. The linked article is about learning for pleasure, but there are also challenges associated with trying to enter the field as a second career. The technical complexity, of course, and the scale of what needs to b…

If you don't mind me asking, why would one give up a cushy, well paid attorney career and choose software engineering? Software engineering compensation _tops out_ below where an experienced attorney compensation _begins_. The least I've ever paid a lawyer was $250/hr.

I started as a lawyer then switched to programming. Law is cushy in the sense that you work in a nice office. But the constant stress, endless "emergency" deadlines, missed anniversaries and celebrations, unreasonable clients, pressure to bill bill bill, then to earn earn earn...

Then there's the work itself. I was in litigation, handling lawsuits between enormous corporations. The first few years of my career were spent in doc review 'dungeons', going through millions of pages of documents to find 'relevant' and 'hot' docs. Then as I became more senior, I was bombarded with one discovery motion after that were often filled with toxic attacks against the other side ("those bastards hid these documents! blah blah blah"). It didn't change much once I began doing 'substantial' work: litigation, by its nature, is intellectual combat. Being immersed in that kind of knife-fighting 24/7, week after week, wore me down.

Now I'm a software engineer and I love it. Work is interesting, hours are humane, and I genuinely enjoy collaborating with my colleagues to build new things.

Sure, I don't make as much as I did in law. But the evenings and weekends I can spend with my family, my mind at rest, are priceless. Plus, software engineers make plenty of money.

Re: On finally learning to program at the age of 40

#125

Post by tannhauser23 »

VamosArgentina wrote: post #69
swyx wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

learned to code at 30 here after a previous life in finance. doing well 4 years on. if i can help anyone in this thread just reply!

Do you code professionally? My gf wants to get a job as a programmer and is about 30 too

I switched careers too and I can tell you that the first job is the hardest to get. Build a portfolio and network hard. Take contract jobs. Do whatever it takes to get your foot in the door.

Re: On finally learning to program at the age of 40

#126

Post by tannhauser23 »

darkteflon wrote: post #12

I'm in this boat. Finally started programming in 2018 at age 38 after a lifetime of playing around with computers as a hobby (thanks, dad!) and a first career in a completely unrelated field, as an attorney. The linked article is about learning for pleasure, but there are also challenges associated with trying to enter the field as a second career. The technical complexity, of course, and the scale of what needs to b…

Hey same here! Switched from law to programming in my mid 30s as well. Never looked back!

Re: On finally learning to program at the age of 40

#127

Post by scipute68 »

Remember driving home from work one day (SA when Linux was first making a noise in the Novell world) and wanting nothing more grand than to learn to properly code in (gnu) awk and expect (tcl). After 23 years I don't even enjoy coding anymore. It's about getting the task out of the inbox and into the outbox.

Re: On finally learning to program at the age of 40

#128

Post by client4 »

mcv wrote: post #77
throwaway17_17 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought for a moment I blacked out and posted to HN without knowing it. I too am a 38 years old attorney who learned CS/Programming late in life. I haven’t had any success in finding relevant job openings for my particular coding knowledge, but I keep looking. Just knowing you exist gives me hope I may still be able to break into tech, at some level. And given that Hurricane Laura just decimated my city ( and my ho…

I think there's a lot of room for programmers with deep domain knowledge about some topic. If writing software for lawyers or law-related issues, I'm pretty sure experience as a lawyer can be very useful.

Just interviewing other lawyers for their “if it existed I would buy it” software would show there’s a lot of opportunity. A friend of mine has been looking for a service that emails her whenever a local municipality does something with easements/property access.

This actually took me down a long rabbit hole of how local government software is horrible and someone could crush this area — my only concern would be lack of traction as local governments seem to prefer operating in obscurity/making it difficult to hold them accountable.

Re: On finally learning to program at the age of 40

#129

Post by joelbluminator »

csboyer wrote: post #88
joelbluminator wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're capable of becoming a lawyer you're capable of becoming a programmer. 38 ain't that old. But why drop being attorney?

Knowing people in both the legal and software world, law is a tough profession with old world business expectations. Almost everything is “last minute” due to either court deadlines or your client dropping everything on you because something happened and it has to be fixed now. In-house counsel jobs can be a bit more relaxing, as you might be working on longer term projects rather than the latest disaster that fell i…

Exactly, I would try to find something in-house. And choose some very narrow field I can be an expert on (GDPR, tech laws, tax etc). Not saying it's easy though.

Re: On finally learning to program at the age of 40

#130

Post by FpUser »

jaeming wrote: post #97
darkteflon wrote: post #12

I'm in this boat. Finally started programming in 2018 at age 38 after a lifetime of playing around with computers as a hobby (thanks, dad!) and a first career in a completely unrelated field, as an attorney. The linked article is about learning for pleasure, but there are also challenges associated with trying to enter the field as a second career. The technical complexity, of course, and the scale of what needs to b…

I started at 39. I had been looking for a new career to transition from video editing. After the third time my employer restructured my role, I took a voluntary redundancy (basically volunteering to be laid-off) and started programming full-time. I did an online bootcamp and never looked back. Five years later I'm a Senior Software Engineer, and hoping to upgrade to principle engineer by end of the year. Sometimes I…

>"...I suddenly feel like a fraud, especially when I realize I'm in a meeting where everyone in the room has a CS degree or higher..."

While having a CS degree does not hurt it is probably on a bottom of things one needs to be a good programmer.

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