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Aging programmer

world.hey.com

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Re: Aging programmer

#211

Post by ecpottinger »

JackMorgan wrote: post #165
twblalock wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I know quite a few engineers who simply no longer need to work ever again, and are working just for "funemployment".

The difference, an engineer is told what to build and tries to do that.

A programmer is told what to do, and half way thru development they have the boss show up and say 'I just read of this brilliant idea in BusinessWeek, lets add/change the code to do .....".

Re: Aging programmer

#212

Post by jetako »

soulofmischief wrote: post #193
adrianmsmith wrote: post #73

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…

As a consultant, I try to reduce my billable hours as much as possible, then charge an appropriate amount for the value I have created, not the time spent, and this leaves me more time for more clients or leisure. Is this not the typical mentality?

I can't speak to the prevalence of this mentality, but it rings true for my consultancy. The idea of maximizing hours is absurd. We do everything we can to minimize hours, thus maximizing value to the client. That's how we keep our clients happy, and make room for more business.

Re: Aging programmer

#213

Post by [deleted] »

twblalock wrote: post #147
StevePerkins wrote: post #97

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.

[deleted]

Re: Aging programmer

#214

Post by Tryk »

somenameforme wrote: post #98
krmboya wrote: post #10

I wonder where the genesis is of this idea that programming is young person's game akin to physical sports where speed, explosiveness and endurance matter. It seems to me that it's an intellectual activity where one should go on for very long honing their skills and becoming better and better at it with age. Maybe the industry sidelines the older more experienced technical folks at a cost, and that's why there seems…

Chess is a primarily mental competition, but players at the top of the world tend to hit their peak at around 35 years old. Players can continue playing at an exceptionally high level until the end of their life, but on average there is a gradual downward slide from that peak. Magnus Carlsen, the current world champ and arguably strongest player of all time, has decided to simply stop defending his title (held since…

The reason Magnus is not defending his title has nothing to do with some decline in ability. Last game versus Nepomniachtchi he won quite convincingly 7.5 to 3.5.

>“I feel I don’t have a lot to gain, I don’t particularly like [the championship matches], and although I’m sure a match would be interesting for historical reasons and all of that, I don’t have any inclination to play and I will simply not play the match,” he said on his sponsor’s podcast. [https://www.npr.org/2022/07/20/1112479750/magnus-carlsen-wor...]

Re: Aging programmer

#215

Post by hindsightbias »

ransom1538 wrote: post #168
StevePerkins wrote: post #97

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…

"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." 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…

I had an office mate whose dream was to retire to the tools desk at HD.

While brutal, there is something to working later from a health perspectice. When I was young, retirees played tennis and golf but I dont see as much of that in my cohort.

Re: Aging programmer

#216

Post by kanbara »

alexk307 wrote: post #130
dahart wrote: post #75

> I have no idea about how effective pair programming is. My desire to discover it is zero. […] Related: working with people you can learn from is a wonderful source of motivation. […] My desire to discuss technical stuff with people, both to help and be helped, is at all-time highs. FWIW pair programming is very hard to do well and usually pretty uncomfortable. It needs to be structured well and done in smaller dose…

This was the only line I really disagreed with. Pair programming, when done right and with two engaged participants, can be extremely rewarding and speeds up time to develop/review/test/etc. Either you're both at the same level, and you can feed off each other, thinking through edge cases and bugs as you go. Or you could be at different levels, where one engineer is teaching, and the other is learning. It's really a…

100% this. in my last job i transitioned into a role i didn't have much experience in, and i paired for a few months and learned more than i ever could have on my own.

the miserly "leave me alone and let me code by myself" people are siloing knowledge and probably not writing the best code or products than if their code could be critiqued in real time or on pull requests and so on.

a lot of adult software engineering is not in a vacuum but in a collaborative and fast-feedback based environment

Re: Aging programmer

#217

Post by pyuser583 »

StevePerkins wrote: post #97

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…

I’ve seen a lot of older programmers. They can wind up working as a team of one because they’re productive enough to do the work of an entire team.

I’ve seen this a lot. Hire older dev. Older dev has decades of experience. Older dev creates new product from scratch in a couple weeks.

Another issue is that mentoring is focused on junior devs by senior (6-8 years of experience) devs. So you’re less likely to have a senior dev (6-8 years experience) mentored by a dev with 20 years experience.

Re: Aging programmer

#218

Post by pyuser583 »

I’d be really interested to see what the experiences are of developers who started at 40+.

If you start at 40+, you are used to the most recent tech: you are more likely to use Python or Go than Java or C++. You’re going to be “cloud native”.

Does that help or hurt?

Re: Aging programmer

#219

Post by electrondood »

The only factor that matters is whether you can keep learning.

Developers that "age out" (author is only 40, lol) are those that think they can just stick with the same technology forever. Not in this industry.

Re: Aging programmer

#220

Post by CrLf »

oaiey wrote: post #161
CrLf wrote: post #151

“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.

The idealized greybeard would consider effective pair programming as wasted time (there is no contribution by the pair). And all other purposes (like training juniors) is not for immediate benefit.

I get collaborative work. But pair programming for me is a net negative: two people working together outputting less than one person working alone. I don’t even consider it beneficial in the longer term (training, as you put it) given the degraded performance.

The very act of programming is buiding a house of cards in your mind and turning it into code before (or while) it collapses due to our limited brain capacity. Keeping two brains synchronized in the process just seems… too much overhead.

Like the OP, I’m just not interested in finding out if I’m wrong or not. I don’t even want to give it the benefit of the doubt lest it takes hold despite being a bad idea, like many other bad ideas that we now have to live with.

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