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Do You Really Want to be Doing this When You're 50?

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Re: Do You Really Want to be Doing this When You're 50?

#101

Post by Tichy »

edw519 wrote: post #60

57, 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 kind of dev practices do you use? Would be interesting if certain habits keep coding enjoyable.

Re: Do You Really Want to be Doing this When You're 50?

#102

Post by edw519 »

daliusd wrote: post #82
edw519 wrote: post #60

57, 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…

So it is about achievements of your paying customers using your technology business's apps you wrote using tools at your hand. Simply put you are happy that you have created something useful to others or there is something more?

That's pretty much it.

I'm one of those guys who comes to Hacker News, reviews what others have built, and immediately thinks 2 things:

  - That is so cool!
  - So what?
Like most others, I love playing around with widgets and technology just for fun and to see what happens. But the satisfaction from this is usually short lived.

I liken playing around with techology to running around and having lots of good sex with strangers. It's fun and it feels great, but sooner or later, you'll want something more substantial. For me, that requires the satisfaction of others. (This applies to both programming and sex.)

Re: Do You Really Want to be Doing this When You're 50?

#103

Post by akadien »

I want to do exactly what I'm doing now in seven years. Like several stories, I drifted out of programming and into various management roles over the past few years. I'm super-fortunate to be out of Excel and Word and back into a command-line and VIM.

As a side note, I work with a well-known researcher/developer in his 70's, and it's like working with Yoda. There is so much to learn from him.

Re: Do You Really Want to be Doing this When You're 50?

#104

Post by brooksbp »

> But large scale, high stress coding? I may have to admit that's a young man's game.

2.5 yrs out of college. Code monkey. Really, really good at monkey programming. Used to get upset when people made claims that it can't or shouldn't be done. "Of course it can be done you lazy #$%*$%. You call yourself a software engineer??" Then I pull it off. A couple more people love me, a couple more hate me. I become the monkey programmer. I am the one who brings designs to life the quickest.

That's the gist, and it's getting old. Requirements change. Social issues. It's like trying to drive a ferarri up switchbacks of a mountain. No wonder companies love hiring new grads.

The largest benefit from this is: reading & writing a lot of code. There is no substitute for this. It has helped me identify design areas that I need experience with. It has also helped me reason about code more efficiently, which is a very useful skill when interacting with other programmers.

Edit: And then I go home and read HN and /r/programming and play with other programming languages and build stupid little programs and read my books and try to figure out my next move...

Re: Do You Really Want to be Doing this When You're 50?

#105

Post by mgkimsal »

"It's about trying to come up with a working solution in a problem domain that you don't fully understand and don't have time to understand."

Hrm... it's like that for me, but it's not like that for others I know. Some people I know have worked in the same industry for several years and have a good grasp on the problem domains they address. That doesn't mean they know the solution to everything off the top of their head, but it does mean they'll likely have time to figure it out, as they're in that business for the long term, and have incentives to get it right vs 'fire and forget and move to the next project'.

I'm in my 40s and have been programming, for 30 years. Initially as a hobby (obviously) but getting paid to do it, first part time, then full time, for about 20 years. I had this same conversation with an uncle last year - shouldn't I be doing something else (OK, not quite the same tone as the OP, but we had the discussion).

I have skills that allow me to solve problems for people. Many people do as well, but with software, I do it with electrons, and can do it wherever and whenever I want. In contrast to many other types of work which dictate location, tools, timing, software work is incredibly flexible. But... more to the point, as more of the world continues to become software-based, the opportunities to offer my problem-solving skills to people increases at a rate few other industries/skills have enjoyed (or will continue to enjoy).

Even if I switched focus to work in "company X" vs "company Y", my core ability will still be "problem solving with software" - I just don't see that changing for me over the next 20-30 years. The 'how' and 'who' may change, but probably not the 'what' so much.

Re: Do You Really Want to be Doing this When You're 50?

#106

Post by velebak »

I've been doing software development for a total of 16 years, with a stint as an IT manager for 5 additional. Did some side work here and there to keep skills sharp, but I recently got back into full-time development after I realized I like creating more than I like maintaining.

I'll be 42 in November, and my experience gives me a guided path to understanding and solving problems, independent of technology, language or API.

I don't need to chew through espresso and lattes until 2am, because I've gotten smarter over time. I can identify patterns and problems faster than I did 20 years ago. I work more efficiently and don't need to take a scatter-shot, unfocused approach to work.

I don't disagree that software is a continual source of frustration to develop, but I think that's because we expect at some point to be super-experts for any problem domain.

Yes, tools and frameworks change. Sometimes they suck. Sometimes they don't. If you don't love learning new things and investing yourself in continually keeping up to date, then you doom yourself to being miserable in this profession at any age.

Re: Do You Really Want to be Doing this When You're 50?

#107

Post by anklos »

bambax wrote: post #16
jgrahamc wrote: post #4

In short, yes, and I'm in my 40s. I actually returned to programming after years managing programmers in part because I was unhappy. I realized that the further I got from the machine and _making_ the less happy I was. So, if you asked me whether I wanted to be 'managing' at 50, I'd say "Hell, no!". The enjoyment of making things work, learning and shipping it real. I hope I'm still able to feel those things at 80. I…

I don't think this is about "programming" versus "managing". It's about "actual problem solving, and building things" (which is good and enjoyable at any age) versus "navigating oceans of constantly changing APIs" and getting bitten by minuscule oversights in enormous volumes of documentation, which requires a lot of stamina, and maybe optimism, that you have less of as you get older. I hate arcane APIs with a passio…

I often see aged programmers are more tolerant with things they dont like,as they know most jobs are just boring from their years of working experience. Lots of them think job is just for paying the bill.

Re: Do You Really Want to be Doing this When You're 50?

#108

Post by Lagged2Death »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #49

I 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…

We're the Michelangelos of the great age of machine intelligence which is yet to come.

If there's a great age of machine intelligence to come, then one in a million of us may be a Michelangelo. The rest of us are house-painters, and the houses we paint are slated for demolition within our own lifetimes.

Re: Do You Really Want to be Doing this When You're 50?

#109

Post by joshyeager »

michaelochurch wrote: post #93
joshyeager wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is another option: find a really good manager who is able and willing to give you what you need, make sure they understand your value, and stay with them. I don't really know how to do that, I just got lucky. I moved into management myself about five years ago (still working for the same guy), and I'm trying to be the same kind of manager for the people who work for me.

I like that idea as well, but the problem is that your manager will, over the long term, change. Most people have no insurance against some person they've never met being hired above them. You need enough independent credibility to protect yourself against that. You have 5 years of managerial experience, so you probably have enough work experience that any job move would be a likely promotion, so your company has inc…

Most of my experience has been in product-focused teams, so there is a good mixture of R&D and polish work. The company as a whole has to spend time convincing customers that our product is useful, but the development team is able to focus on actually making a useful product.

I can see how what you're saying could be a much bigger problem in a project-focused organization (or if you're working on a product that isn't actually useful). So maybe my advice is twofold: "find a good manager and stay with them, and work for a company that values software for its long-term potential."

Re: Do You Really Want to be Doing this When You're 50?

#110

Post by rapind »

I think the key, just like any career, is to truly make an effort to reduce your cost of living (yes even with dependents, or what I like to call barnacles). This will help you get the stress under control and free you up to be a little pickier with the projects / products you work on and the people you work with.

Still happily coding away @ 37 here.

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