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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.

#71

Post by LastTrain »

cr3ative wrote: post #8

Sounds like you've identified your problem with the task - you can't hold the entire state of the problem in your head all at once, but maybe you would have been able to in the past. This seems like something you can overcome. Have you tried writing these function calls out as a flow on a piece of paper, or in a flow chart, document, something like that? A reference which you draw to be able to tell where you are the…

I do this. I was burning through a lot of paper and ended up going with a reMarkable tablet which is perfect for that sort of thing.

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

#72

Post by pmarreck »

I recently turned 50 and am finding the same (to the point that I might want to step "down" to something a little less intellectually-intense like sysadmin) but in my case it's the fact that 18 month old toddler sons are pretty much life-absorbers.

Yesterday I realized that a hard-ish problem in my tiny shell script testing library https://github.com/pmarreck/tinytestlib which I had worked on for over a day was completely moot, and ripped it out while facepalming.

Incidentally, I'm looking for work as... well, the above things, although previously I was a solo Elixir dev.

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

#73

Post by troupe »

Like you, there were things I could hold in my head when I was younger that I cannot now. However, thinking back, it probably had more to do with the fact that when I was younger my other knowledge was less useful to anyone so it was unlikely I'd get interrupted. Now, I get interrupted much more frequently.

Might it be that the people making progress are less interrupted? Also, this sounds like it might be a place where pair programming would be more efficient than two people working alone.

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

#75

Post by rabi_molar »

It might be worth seeing somebody; you may be suffering from burnout or depression. 40 is not the age you'll see cognitive decline; rather, in many situations, you will begin to approach peak mastery. That's not to minimize or say that you may be experiencing some kind of true decline; rather, it's that I think it's potentially more probable that it's something else. I am of course not a trained medical professional.

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

#76

Post by aeschinder »

I've been thrown to the wolves many times before, having to absorb and trace huge commercial codebases and be productive the same week on making updates and answering questions. Over abstraction is a real thing - real smart developers seem to pride themselves on how much juice they can squeeze out of dependency injection frameworks such as Structure Map and leverage the syntactic sugar of these tools until the solution is almost crystallized with hyper engineering.

I'm telling you this because I don't think it's you necessarily, but that more and more there are codebases that are dense with this kind of thick obfuscating abstraction.

I dropped out of IT when I was 52. I'm 55 now and don't think I could keep up with the constant myriad changes in literally all aspects of tech. Change for change sake is a scourge that lots of companies fall prey to in the name of keeping up which feels to older developers like chasing the rainbow that is just over the next hill...

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

#77

Post by dceddia »

Not quite 40 yet but I’ve felt this way sometimes. Like the problem is too big and I can’t break it into small enough chunks to make sense of it.

Sometimes it helps me to open a text doc to use as a “thought stack”. Just a bulleted list of items as I descend into a problem. Whether that’s an actual call stack, or just a yak-shaving exercise, it’s nice to have those first few levels written down so I can get myself back out. It also helps for refreshing the context.

Another strategy I’ve used is to write out the architecture in prose, explaining the pieces and how they relate, stream-of-consciousness style. I find it helps my mind break out of thought loops.

I also notice that my mind recoils at anything that is boring, or that seems relatively pointless, to the point where it’s very hard to get into a flow with work like that. I think that used to be easier to push through.

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

#78

Post by cjbgkagh »

Could be burnout, could be ME/CFS, could be Long Covid… could be something else. Have you noticed a limited working memory or loss of enthusiasm? You might notice things like forgetting why you walked into a room, or abandoning hobbies and activities you no longer enjoy. I have ME/CFS from hEDS (far more common than people think, especially here on HN, and double especially those here on HN with ADHD) so I ended up taking a bunch of pharmaceuticals which got me back to work and sharper than ever. One of the core combos I take is a low dose of Modafinil in the morning and Amitriptyline at night, together these act a bit like a triple monoamine reuptake inhibitor but with better timing of action. It’s a reasonably common treatment for depression.

The point is, even if you live a perfectly healthy life with the perfect diet, exercise, and rest, it’s possible that something else is out of kilter and may need serious intervention.

Maybe try a max exertion test for post exertional malaise.

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

#79

Post by linuxftw »

Others have given a lot of good advice, but porting code is a menial task and not suited for someone of your experience level. Unless this port is a real game changer and you're going to get lots of credit for helping the company in a major way, it's just a thankless waste of time.

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

#80

Post by simmo9000 »

Wait till your 50!

Days get shorter, winter gets colder, days blur together. Things change. Fortran was way easier... Pfff objects of objects to keep track of.

Remember what your core strengths are... Where the true wisdom is. And always check back to the requirements document.

You have a detailed one right?

Break what you are required to do into smaller components, but from the other side of the problem, systematically. I find by going smaller and smaller I eventually find a manageable chunk that I can start with.

A rainbow attack on the sha512 can often deliver a fast result.

I have to go yell at a cloud now...

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