Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Same Stop: Life after 26 years as a programmer for Apple

engineersneedart.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 438 posts

Re: Same Stop: Life after 26 years as a programmer for Apple

#181

Post by bombolo »

bcrosby95 wrote: post #106
worrycue wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I pursued computer science because of the romanticized notation of tracking every bit and byte and talking directly to the hardware. Isn’t computer science mostly math? Figure people in computer science would be more at home with the abstract stuff like Haskell where you can’t even see the underlying hardware and your programs are expressed as a bunch of (declarative) functions where sequential execution of instruc…

Um, no. At most schools, the only place you might touch something as esoteric as Haskell is in a programming languages class.

At my university haskell was required from the start and used in several courses.

Re: Same Stop: Life after 26 years as a programmer for Apple

#182

Post by bombolo »

xupybd wrote: post #60
hgs3 wrote: post #49

> But there is something becoming more familiar to me as I go back to the wild west of C programming (where very little happens behind the scenes I might point out - no garbage collection here!). I share this sentiment. I pursued computer science because of the romanticized notation of tracking every bit and byte and talking directly to the hardware. I know I'm not alone given the popularity of old-school fantasy con…

The most unfulfilling days for me are when my dependencies seem to fall over. I have a project that only builds in one version of Visual Studio on my machine. I know it's bad, I know I should get to the bottom of it before it becomes a real problem, but it's soul crushing work.

> The most unfulfilling days for me are when my dependencies seem to fall over.

I tend to pick only stuff that is packaged in a distribution, if at all possible. They usually do a decent job at gatekeeping the countless libraries created by people that have no idea on how to make a library.

Re: Same Stop: Life after 26 years as a programmer for Apple

#183

Post by onion2k »

marktolson wrote: post #177
kstenerud wrote: post #142

In 2 days time I'll mark my 27th year as a professional programmer (and just over 40 years since I started programming). I've worked in small companies, big companies, and mega-corporations. I've been a programmer, manager, team lead and CTO. And in doing so I discovered that I don't like managing people, I don't like meetings, and I don't like paperwork. I like long periods of focus. So I'm a software dev/architect…

Same path, but for the last 10 years i've been a CTO. Right now i'd kill for fewer meetings and more focus time. Starting to take its toll.

Hire an engineering manager and delegate.

Re: Same Stop: Life after 26 years as a programmer for Apple

#184

Post by badpun »

sureglymop wrote: post #109
rubicon33 wrote: post #52

> I am not sure though if this is still the case for software engineers. Are there younger engineers, new to the career, for whom programming is not merely a job but something they can imagine doing in their spare time? I think I met a few as I was winding down my career. I do feel though that back around 1988 or so when I started getting serious into programming that all fellow programmers I met were also doing it w…

As a young software engineer.. I had an insane amount of passion right until I got into the workforce. As a kid hacking around was great and I thought that's what the job would be like. As soon as I entered the workforce it was pretty apparent that it's not about creativity, curiosity and being passionate and knowledgeable. It's about being agile and delivering quickly, quantity over quality, being good at talking, s…

> With covid lately and other challenges like AI and whatnot there may just be no time to be passionate because it is time spent worrying.

It was always like that, it's basically the human condition. You may choose not to worry and live your life how you'd want it to be lived. You might get crushed in the process, though. If you don't, you'll die of old age anyway, but the overall ride may be more comfortable.

Re: Same Stop: Life after 26 years as a programmer for Apple

#185

Post by DanielHB »

iamflimflam1 wrote: post #171

I would recommend everyone who retires from programming to get into the maker world. 3D printed, embedded programming - it’s great fun and just feels different from the day to day programming grind.

don't do it as a profession, embedded programming grind is worse than conventional cloud/web programming grind

Re: Same Stop: Life after 26 years as a programmer for Apple

#186

Post by ZaoLahma »

newswasboring wrote: post #147
ArcMex wrote: post #132

>Are there younger engineers, new to the career, for whom programming is not merely a job but something they can imagine doing in their spare time? Yes, absolutely!

I've reached a age where I have to answer "define young". Early thirties is weird. All the people I respect and learn from are still older than me, but not old old.

The "define young"-range seems to be a sliding window centered around your current age.

Perhaps at some point there will be very few older than you and perhaps then the sliding window will be offset accordingly, but at least for me (almost, almost 40) I'm still well within the "define young" range from my own point of view.

Re: Same Stop: Life after 26 years as a programmer for Apple

#187

Post by tombert »

ArcMex wrote: post #132

>Are there younger engineers, new to the career, for whom programming is not merely a job but something they can imagine doing in their spare time? Yes, absolutely!

I have no idea if I am considered "young" (32), but I taught a few classes over the last few semesters to students who were unambiguously young, and I can definitely say that young people coding for fun are definitely out there.

A few students of mine would show me little games they were working on, or websites they were building. Sure, they might be doing this a bit for resume-fuel, but it was abundantly obvious to me that they were doing these things largely because they thought it was cool.

And you know what? It is cool! I tried my best to encourage them to keep at it.

Re: Same Stop: Life after 26 years as a programmer for Apple

#188

Post by tambourine_man »

nawgz wrote: post #42
tambourine_man wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people are. Even stuff you might not like, such as pressure, can be addictive. I know I’ve felt “withdraw” symptoms on extended holidays after intense work sprints. And I consider myself a lazy bastard.

Haha, I don't think you should try to generalize your emotions - "withdrawal" symptoms on vacation could easily just be your stressed out body finally resting, or one of many other emotions. None of what you have said tracks for me. I can shut off work in a minute and I feel glorious when I do it; it's purely a practical thing. I will stop the minute I can, which I seem to be about 30% of the way to

Not generalizing my emotions, there’s even a term for it: workaholic. It’s a thing.

You may not experience it, but your “I can stop whenever I want” kind of phrase doesn’t help you make your point.

Re: Same Stop: Life after 26 years as a programmer for Apple

#189

Post by moffkalast »

tombert wrote: post #187
ArcMex wrote: post #132

>Are there younger engineers, new to the career, for whom programming is not merely a job but something they can imagine doing in their spare time? Yes, absolutely!

I have no idea if I am considered "young" (32), but I taught a few classes over the last few semesters to students who were unambiguously young, and I can definitely say that young people coding for fun are definitely out there. A few students of mine would show me little games they were working on, or websites they were building. Sure, they might be doing this a bit for resume-fuel, but it was abundantly obvious to…

The "it's for the resume" is a convenient excuse when people ask you why are you spending hundreds of hours on something that seems pointless but is fun to code.

Re: Same Stop: Life after 26 years as a programmer for Apple

#190

Post by tombert »

potatoboiler wrote: post #179
mhh__ wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To even ask is ridiculous.

As a current undergraduate, programming for fun is ubiquitous in my peers. Surprises me also that the author has to ask.

In a bit of fairness, I know a lot of very competent engineers who do not code for fun at all. Programming is purely a job for them, and then they go home and hack on nothing.

There's honestly nothing wrong with that. It's perfectly valid to do something purely for the pay (so long as what you're doing is ethical, obviously). I suspect there are plenty of young people who see the bloated salaries that software engineers get and decide to learn programming for purely economic reasons.

This probably contrasts somewhat to the 80's and 90's, where it was substantially more difficult to "get into" computers, and as a result there was a strong selection bias towards really passionate people.

Post reply on HN