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Ask HN: Resources for older developers?

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Re: Ask HN: Resources for older developers?

#61

Post by sanitycheck »

Dowwie wrote: post #45
sokoloff wrote: post #37

I'm in my 50s. I can't think of any category or dimension of tech resources that would more or less valuable for me in my 50s than they would be if I were in my 30s. Advice on exercise and eating responsibly might be the category (that you probably didn't have in mind) that would be different. Twenty years ago, I could play a softball doubleheader and hit the pub for a dinner of wings and several beers and be fine th…

I took care of my health in my 30s and now that I'm in my 40s can't sleep a full night if I have a single beer. I have no choice but to take care of my health.

Nor me, but five will do the trick. (HTH, WFM, YMMV)

Re: Ask HN: Resources for older developers?

#62

Post by cableshaft »

fnordpiglet wrote: post #19
softwaredoug wrote: post #13

In my 20s I worried about losing my intellectual abilities in my 40s and 50s What you really just lose is patience for BS :) Sure, yeah, you lose 10% of your raw intellect if you stay healthy[1]. You probably more than make up for it in experience and wisdom. But hell the thing that demotivates me is the recycled insanity of large organizations, egotistical tech executives, hype cycles, and all the other BS. Eventual…

This is what is me as I head into my 50’s. I always knew it was BS, but now I can’t ignore it any more. Corporate culture garbage drives me absolutely to depression now, and I can’t force myself to care any more. I love teaching and mentoring and leading and programming and all those skills. But I can’t muster up to energy to give a crap about anything other than the work itself, the team, the product, etc. I more cl…

Hello fellow Discordian! Ewige Blumenkraft und ewige Schlangenkraft!

I've also seen the fnords. Makes it difficult to drag my ass to work sometimes.

Re: Ask HN: Resources for older developers?

#63

Post by spacemadness »

javcasas wrote: post #27
softwaredoug wrote: post #13

In my 20s I worried about losing my intellectual abilities in my 40s and 50s What you really just lose is patience for BS :) Sure, yeah, you lose 10% of your raw intellect if you stay healthy[1]. You probably more than make up for it in experience and wisdom. But hell the thing that demotivates me is the recycled insanity of large organizations, egotistical tech executives, hype cycles, and all the other BS. Eventual…

39 here. I'm significantly better than in my 20s. Much more knowledge and wisdom, a bit less raw brainpower. But I know I can force myself through hard stuff (prolog, category theory, ML research papers) but only if I can kick out instant gratification for a while (reddit, hn, videogames). I remember this week more than 10 years ago where my graphics card died, and had to go with this ancient card with zero accelerat…

Constantly needing to “feel productive” after work by limiting hobbies is also enough to drive you crazy after awhile, unless it’s of real personal interest of course and not just to advance your career.

Re: Ask HN: Resources for older developers?

#64

Post by phlipski »

I was the youngest engineer (by quite a bit ~ 10 years) in my team for a good decade. Which in hindsight I probably should have left earlier than I did. But from that experience what I did notice is that there were two types of older engineers. Those that continued to WANT to learn new things and those that were intellectually lazy and essentially said, "We've never done that before." Well the intellectually lazy all got laid off over time. The guys who wanted to learn new things generally kept finding ways to stay relevant and add value to the organization. I think it's simple as just - never stop learning!

Re: Ask HN: Resources for older developers?

#66

Post by softwaredoug »

tessierashpool wrote: post #51
softwaredoug wrote: post #13

In my 20s I worried about losing my intellectual abilities in my 40s and 50s What you really just lose is patience for BS :) Sure, yeah, you lose 10% of your raw intellect if you stay healthy[1]. You probably more than make up for it in experience and wisdom. But hell the thing that demotivates me is the recycled insanity of large organizations, egotistical tech executives, hype cycles, and all the other BS. Eventual…

> you lose 10% of your raw intellect if you stay healthy this is not true, and not substantiated. maybe you meant “if you don’t stay healthy,” but it’s still not an accurate number, or even a thing which is specific enough that attaching a number to it could mean anything. there is some improvement in cognitive function from exercise, but that applies to all age ranges.

My understanding of the research is summed up in this paper[1]. Which states:

> The most important changes in cognition with normal aging are declines in performance on cognitive tasks that require one to quickly process or transform information to make a decision, including measures of speed of processing, working memory, and executive cognitive function. Cumulative knowledge and experiential skills are well maintained into advanced age.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4906299/

Re: Ask HN: Resources for older developers?

#67

Post by neilv »

radicalbyte wrote: post #20
softwaredoug wrote: post #13

In my 20s I worried about losing my intellectual abilities in my 40s and 50s What you really just lose is patience for BS :) Sure, yeah, you lose 10% of your raw intellect if you stay healthy[1]. You probably more than make up for it in experience and wisdom. But hell the thing that demotivates me is the recycled insanity of large organizations, egotistical tech executives, hype cycles, and all the other BS. Eventual…

I'm 42 and so much better than I was at 22, but nowhere near where I was as an individual at 33. I blame the latter on having three small children. It has taken me a long time to deal with being only above average instead of someone people viewed as a genius. Not sure if I agree with the intellect loss - I've not lost anything, I'm just much better at juggling multiple things and less good at the math-heavy detail wo…

> genius

Something I invented early in my career seemed like a hotshot thing at the time. But I now realize it wasn't that great, and today I could do much better in my sleep.

One of the benefits of experience seems to be greater understanding of some things, even if that means realizing we're not as smart as we used to think we are.

"Greater understanding" is also one theory for the lower tolerance for BS that some have mentioned here. Early in our career/life, we have less basis to recognize nonsense and to understand its impact. With experience, we start to realize, say, a single thing that's happening has orders of magnitude more adverse impact than we can make up with all a team's clever activity, and that there's no good reason for it.

If, when you say "we urgently need to stop dumping toxic waste onto our lawn, because it's an existential threat to our company and everyone around it", but a very junior person hears only "get off my lawn, you whippersnappers!", well, they'll understand someday. If they survive the Superfund site.

Re: Ask HN: Resources for older developers?

#68

Post by jes »

I'm 63 and have been "working with computers" since the mid 70s or so. It's been a great ride and it's not quite over yet.

As to your specific question, perhaps you'd be interested in maintaining some existing open source projects whose mission speaks to you. If you can contribute and bring more value than pain in working with you, I'd expect they would come to welcome your help.

As regards the negatives and imagined negatives of being an older developer, I have to say that they just don't have any sting with me. Nothing has any sting with me anymore.

Re: Ask HN: Resources for older developers?

#69

Post by makz »

javcasas wrote: post #27
softwaredoug wrote: post #13

In my 20s I worried about losing my intellectual abilities in my 40s and 50s What you really just lose is patience for BS :) Sure, yeah, you lose 10% of your raw intellect if you stay healthy[1]. You probably more than make up for it in experience and wisdom. But hell the thing that demotivates me is the recycled insanity of large organizations, egotistical tech executives, hype cycles, and all the other BS. Eventual…

39 here. I'm significantly better than in my 20s. Much more knowledge and wisdom, a bit less raw brainpower. But I know I can force myself through hard stuff (prolog, category theory, ML research papers) but only if I can kick out instant gratification for a while (reddit, hn, videogames). I remember this week more than 10 years ago where my graphics card died, and had to go with this ancient card with zero accelerat…

37 here. I’m probably slower than in my 20s but somehow I feel smarter. I feel it takes me less time to learn new stuff and solve complex issues.

Re: Ask HN: Resources for older developers?

#70

Post by radicalbyte »

lallysingh wrote: post #40
radicalbyte wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm 42 and so much better than I was at 22, but nowhere near where I was as an individual at 33. I blame the latter on having three small children. It has taken me a long time to deal with being only above average instead of someone people viewed as a genius. Not sure if I agree with the intellect loss - I've not lost anything, I'm just much better at juggling multiple things and less good at the math-heavy detail wo…

I suspect catching on some sleep, having free time to let your mind relax, and also time to sharpen your skills will bring you up pretty quickly. Improved self awareness may not bring you the confidence you had when you were 33, and improved humility may also prevent the 'genius' perception, but you're probably already more effective an engineer now than 9 years ago. And even more so after you GET SOME SLEEP :-)

Me too. Even without that I'm way more effective than then because now that I'm handicapped I had to focus less on me and more on the entire value chain.

Ruthless focus on having the maximum value for minimum effort.

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