161–170 of 375 posts
“I have no idea about how effective pair programming is. My desire to discover it is zero.“ I stand with the OP. Maybe this is a young folks thing, but I don’t understand how anyone can pair program. It’s like going to the toilet with someone staring at you.
And all other purposes (like training juniors) is not for immediate benefit.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I share this frustration, but I think the root cause of the frustration is the difference between what I feel should be important, and what actually is important to people. Getting great reliable software delivered quickly, which is easy to maintain and change, should be the goal, I feel. But if that’s the case, why do people invent problems to find solutions to, why do people spend multiple days a week in Scrum meet…
The psychological aspect of consultants and even employees trying to play a game with billable hours aside, a lot of developers of all ages genuinely feel using frameworks to do the exact same thing one can achieve with far less hubbub is a good thing, and they have trouble defending it. It's a cargo cult by all standards. Many of us are living this now. If it's not the chasing of new frameworks, it is old frameworks…
Many developers nowadays seem to expect to be able to just wire things together without actual writing much algorithmic code. And the solutions have catered to that.
Those of us that are older lament the idea of using frameworks to increase our productivity, but still being more than glorified middle-men.
I don't speak for my company, but in my opinion they still get more value from me, net, as a non-manager than they would as a manager. I also think some of the most valuable work I do is not in the code I write or the systems I build myself, but rather in the guidance I can give junior developers on the things they build, and the way they approach their careers. If I get can someone in her 20's or 30's to adopt a use…
Why would a programmer at any age be a good manager? Manager is a totally different job with unrelated skills.
I think of it in terms of leverage. If I knew for sure that my becoming a manager would let me be a force multiplier for my team, that they would all be enough better to more than compensate for losing me as an individual contributor, I would consider making the switch. Having been a developer myself, I would have insight into what gets in their way, and I could use my managerial powers For Good™ to get those things out of their way. At least that would be my intent. I've had excellent managers who had been good developers who chose this path.
Having said all that, one of my first managers early in my career was a high-functioning developer who was moved to a leadership role because that was the default expectation. He was a terrible manager; he played favorites and treated his responsibility as authority to be wielded against those he didn't like. I was fortunate that he liked me, but he stifled the early careers of some of my friends who were at least as good at the job as I was. So there is something to be said for not having developer-to-manager as a default expectation.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There’s a legit issue in there, but us old’ns might have to own up to some of the problems we’ve caused (or even just failed to solve) and the legacy we’re leaving. ;) I’m mostly joking, but I honestly don’t think this is a young vs old issue, I think it’s a byproduct of happening to live through the time when the internet took over the earth right while programming exploded as a career. The amount of choice, complex…
How was the switch from web to hardware/low level? Did u do some self studying to get a job?
I'm approaching 50. Just a scant decade away from being old enough to tap my retirement accounts and have the OPTION to retire. These next couple of years look like they might not be fun, but overall it looks like I'm actually going to make it. For most of my career, I've been told (and I believed) that I would probably get forced out of a hands-on individual contributor role as I aged. During the late-2000's, I even…
Also, programmers are paid better than most people and early retirement is often possible. A lot of programmers don’t need to work into their 60s. In my own case, when I have enough money to retire it’s going to be hard to convince me to keep working.
This post and its comments warm my soul. At 33 and a decade in, I’ve only recently started to worry about what the tech world in general is telling me: That I have to become a manager. That I won’t always code until I retire. That I won’t be welcome in the workforce in my later years. All of those things frighten me! I love programming, and I want to be doing it in my 60s, happily. Glad to see that people are.
However, idle you never can be. Because being of age and not being able to run with the pack is bad. Luckily, it is not the framework of the day but more the soft skills which make the difference.
Firmware worked on the new board, the very first time. I consider that a career capper. :-)
I figure I'll go until I'm 70 or so. We'll see.
I'm approaching 50. Just a scant decade away from being old enough to tap my retirement accounts and have the OPTION to retire. These next couple of years look like they might not be fun, but overall it looks like I'm actually going to make it. For most of my career, I've been told (and I believed) that I would probably get forced out of a hands-on individual contributor role as I aged. During the late-2000's, I even…
Programmers are in a bubble. Head over to the local grocery store. The person bagging your groceries is 63. There is no retirement plan for him - as well as most Americans. These "old" people will end up working until 70, on their feet. If I can find someone to pay me to write CRUD apps all day in whatever hipster framework, I am fine with that, no complaints here. Beats working at HomeDepot.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The number I saw was something like every 5 years the number of programmers doubles. So half if all devs have less than 5 years experience. And since most new devs are more likely to be closer to college age than retirement age devs tend to skew younger than 40 (probably by a lot). https://blog.cleancoder.com/uncle-bob/2014/06/20/MyLawn.html
I ran numbers from the BLS on occupation data a few years back. If you look at the number of programmers 25-35 in 2000 and the number of programmers in 2020 aged 45-55 you see a real and substantial decrease in absolute terms. The decrease is much larger then other professions, so its not attributable to a cohort just exiting the workforce in general. There is also a massive increase in the number of 25-35 programmer…
This is especially tempting if someone’s skills start to diverge from what’s in demand.
It's interesting that one can take away radically different things from a technical career. For instance, at around the same age, I much prefer pair programming ; try to avoid remote work ; have little time for drawn-out technical discussions ; etc. I wonder how much of these takeaways are career-path-dependent and how much are due to innate personality traits.