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Ask HN: I'm 40 and feel my mental ability declining. Programming seems harder.

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Re: Ask HN: I'm 40 and feel my mental ability declining. Programming seems harder.

#51

Post by mgkimsal »

> several other developers are making progress on porting this API

You didn't mention tests. How do you know their 'progress' is actually correct or even good?

I'm presuming the 'several other developers' are younger than you, hence your concern about age. Without some measuring stick to know if what they're doing is correct, you can't tell if they're just doing more work or actually doing it correctly.

> How do I find even a single chunk of manageable work to break off.

How is anyone else finding work to break off? Is this a free for all, or are there any planning sessions to identify things? Without that, you might be overwriting or reworking something someone else already did.

You may want to ask for some pairing with someone else who you think is doing this better/faster than you, and just ask to work with them for a couple hours.

Talking through the problems with someone else might help turn a corner with respect to mental models. How are they reasoning about current code? How are they tracing through the paths? Someone else deep in this problem may be able to come up with language or examples that resonate with you in a way that random HN people can't.

Re: Ask HN: I'm 40 and feel my mental ability declining. Programming seems harder.

#52

Post by cnees »

I'm in my 20s still, and I wouldn't make much progress on this at all without diagramming or leaving annotations on almost every line of code. Go ahead and do those things. If you don't, you could alternatively invest a hefty chunk of time into reading and absorbing the code so well you don't need to. And if you don't do that either, you're setting yourself up for failure in a way your managers probably protected you from when you were younger and less experienced.

Re: Ask HN: I'm 40 and feel my mental ability declining. Programming seems harder.

#53

Post by bsaul »

I won't comment on your particular example, but i've definitely witness a good side : you'll immediately spot code that's a bit too clever for its own good.

I have recently tried to raise the bar on my designs and being older is definitely a plus. Not only do you have the previous experiences to user as a reference, but the amount of energy you'll need to fit everything in your head means you'll instinctively accept the effort if you feel like it's worth it.

Re: Ask HN: I'm 40 and feel my mental ability declining. Programming seems harder.

#54

Post by codr7 »

Alifatisk wrote: post #12

This is my worst nightmare, my plan is to leave this industry when I get really old because I’m scared my mental state will worsen and I will lose my problem solving skills.

I'm 45, have been writing code since 8.

Whatever you lose is more than compensated by experience, you spend less time solving the wrong problems.

A bigger issue is the cycles, and the realization that we don't learn much from history. Ignorance is bliss.

Re: Ask HN: I'm 40 and feel my mental ability declining. Programming seems harder.

#55

Post by rr888 »

I think too that younger developers are more enthusiastic and naive, they just go in and do the work. Experienced people can see more complex cases, more failure conditions, more future paths and end up making the task more complicated than it could be. On top of this its probably not as interesting if you've done this a few times before so adds up to a good place to procrastinate.

Re: Ask HN: I'm 40 and feel my mental ability declining. Programming seems harder.

#56

Post by morog »

40 something Dev here. Some things that have worked for me: eat a high fat/protein breakfast with little to no carbs. Stuff like avocado,eggs, sardines,spinach,seeds,nuts,coconut flour; regular exercise (duh); supplement a good omega oil; Lions mane mushroom extract; eliminate distractions;good headphones; daily meditation (TM is a good place to start);use a knowledge manager like obsidian and write everything down in it;always think 'whats a better way to do this' because there is one

Re: Ask HN: I'm 40 and feel my mental ability declining. Programming seems harder.

#58

Post by thiago_fm »

Nah, I think your expectations are wrong.

No matter how good you are, nobody is good enough to port an API like you are saying it, by memorising or thinking 9 levels deep. Humans aren't designed for this kind of tasks.

Instead, you should take steps to understand the parts that compromise the abstractions that make up that API and implement it.

Also have good test coverage from both sides, so you make sure you are implemented something that resembles more like a spec.

Re: Ask HN: I'm 40 and feel my mental ability declining. Programming seems harder.

#59

Post by peteradio »

linuxftw wrote: post #43
matwood wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In addition to the GP, I'll add there's a certain level of naïveté of being young that makes one feel like they were better than they were. I'm mid-40s and am probably the best I've ever been at writing good code, but sometimes I can get vapor locked knowing all the things I need to account to for. When I was younger I just coded because I didn't know any better. So when I get stuck now, I just start writing code lik…

Not in my mid-40s yet, but vapor lock is a great term. I also try to do the same, just write crufty code that works, hopefully clean it up some as I go.

> I also try to do the same, just write crufty code that works, hopefully clean it up some as I go.

I account for this in planning. POC -> POC validation -> Finalv2ForReal -> Finalv2ForReal validation

It gives two shakes at a decent solution with some built-in learning. If this looks like too much for business then well I tried I guess I'll do less work for the same amount of money (inevitably the stupid shit that got prioritized goes away). And I documented what I would have done and can point at it when POC as a service is ermmmm ... less than performant.

Re: Ask HN: I'm 40 and feel my mental ability declining. Programming seems harder.

#60

Post by Oras »

Is it just this API, or do you struggle with other coding tasks too?

From your description, you want to deeply understand the functionality to make better porting, which is what I expect from a senior developer.

Also, this might be a boring project, not triggering any mental reward for accomplishing it.

I would focus on your learning pace for exciting topics to measure mental abilities.

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