I will code until I'm dead. No harm in that, right?
Do You Really Want to be Doing this When You're 50?
51–60 of 260 posts
Re: Do You Really Want to be Doing this When You're 50?
#52That's solved long ago. There are some underlying concepts, foundation ideas which didn't change much since 1960-70-80s, the time when they have been discovered, studied and defined. Yes, people are piling up tons of crap in order to get money, and this is how we got a millions lines of meaningless Java code which no one could understand or maintain, which seems to work well only because most of unit-tests passed and…
That's how I feel. I don't want to be a programmer when I'm 50, or even, preferably, when I'm 30. Trying to run to the top of a dune made of quicksand just doesn't seem like a good career move.
(Hell, every few months I find something new to feel obsolete about, usually to do with the fact that most programming nowadays seems to be web-dev and I'm just not into web-dev.)
On the other hand, I'd love to keep being a computer scientist until.... I don't even know what age. Sure, eventually I'll have a family and other priorities to take care of, but the wonderful thing about the scientific frontier is that it doesn't actually move that quickly. In science, ideas have to actually be tested and percolate through for a while before they become something ever single practitioner has to know.
Re: Do You Really Want to be Doing this When You're 50?
#53I love programming and still consider myself a programmer first, although I do a lot of other things too. If I wanted to rag on programming, I'd point out how many dysfunctional programming workplaces we have, or how our tools are always 100 times more complex than they need to be, or how setting up and managing the programming environment can take the joy right out of actually doing the work. (I could go on at lengt…
> I worry that as the job of programming matures, we are losing track of that fundamental insight.
Reminds me of the intro to SICP:
“I think that it’s extraordinarily important that we in computer science keep fun in computing. When it started out, it was an awful lot of fun. Of course, the paying customers got shafted every now and then, and after a while we began to take their complaints seriously. We began to feel as if we really were responsible for the successful, error-free perfect use of these machines. I don’t think we are. I think we’re responsible for stretching them, setting them off in new directions and keeping fun in the house. I hope the field of computer science never loses its sense of fun. Above all, I hope we don’t become missionaries. Don’t feel as if you’re Bible salesmen. The world has too many of those already. What you know about computing other people will learn. Don’t feel as if the key to successful computing is only in your hands. What’s in your hands, I think and hope, is intelligence: the ability to see the machine as more than when you were first led up to it, that you can make it more.” — Alan J. Perlis (April 1, 1922 – February 7, 1990)
Re: Do You Really Want to be Doing this When You're 50?
#54For much of this frustration I blame the modern practice of letting some committee design a protocol or other standards and then force that down the throats of programmers. This leads to bloated designs and deficient implementations and documentation and last, but not least, far too many revisions and alternatives.
Back in the day, protocols (tools, languages, ...) were designed by people who thought very hard about the implementation, the required resources and the programmers whom these were inflicted upon.
In contrast, entities like the W3C display complete ignorance for the implementation details (look how they've failed to provide even a half-assed implementation of a browser as proof-of-concept for their "designed by committee" standards). Whatever builds on top of such lackluster work is doomed and will frustrate programmers endlessly ...
Re: Do You Really Want to be Doing this When You're 50?
#55I really started programming at 30. Prior to that I spend 5 years managing medium-sized groups of IT staff (telephone, wan/lan,satellite). Managing the IT groups was a billion times more stressful. Programming is so much more fun and rewarding.
Re: Do You Really Want to be Doing this When You're 50?
#56I am 50. I had a large portion of the 'middle' of my career in management, including a couple CTO/VP Eng positions, with the traditional increasing stress. So I moved to Hawaii for nearly a decade, got rid of the stress, rediscovered programming, and I'm happy again.
I think the reason you are even able(read afford) to move to Hawaii is because you went through a couple of CTO/VP Eng positions, with traditional increasing stress.
I think the point is that if he kept programming (i.e. doing what he enjoyed) rather than taking the CTO/VP positions he might not have needed a break in Hawaii to de-stress.
Re: Do You Really Want to be Doing this When You're 50?
#57I'm 63, been programming since my student days in 1965. Programming is one of the greatest jobs in the World. I'd rather program than play golf. All my life I've been incredulous that they actually pay me to do this.
(I'm not sedentary, I walk 3 km/day, 8 on week-ends).
Re: Do You Really Want to be Doing this When You're 50?
#58I'm 23, so I have no idea, but I'm pretty sure that I will still love programming as much as I do now. I started as a kid, so it's a big part of me. However, a lot can change in 27 years. Programming is a huge passion of mine, but music and charity work can also steal all of my focus if I let them.
I'm a Ruby on Rails specialist at the moment, and I absolutely love the framework and community. GitHub and rubygems are amazing. Google and Stack Overflow are like all-knowing genies. I'll go out on a limb and say that right now is the best time in history to be a developer, and tomorrow will be even better.
Re: Do You Really Want to be Doing this When You're 50?
#5930's here. I'm actually calling "still doing this when I'm 50" my best case scenario. It will mean the joy I take in making was able to outrun the creeping cynicism that seems to catch up with far too many people as they get older.
It's about getting derailed by hairline fractures in otherwise reliable tools, and apparently being the first person to discover...
I actually live for these moments. When I google the error, in quotes, and get 0 responses. Its a total rush to know that I'm the first one there. Its even better when I figure out a decent fix and then light out across the forums to share my new-found knowledge.
Re: Do You Really Want to be Doing this When You're 50?
#6057, programming for 33 years with hardly a day off, and having more fun than ever.
My motivation? It's not about the technology, the tools, the apps, the business, the customers, or even the money, although any of those can provide plenty of motivation. And believe it or not, it's not even about the happy dance feeling I get when something I built works for the first time.
It's about the achievements of those who use what I built. Hopefully that'll keep my busy for another 33 years.