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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?

#111

Post by rapind »

raganwald wrote: post #80

If you're young, be sure to read the responses here very carefully. There are lots of people like me who love what they do at fifty or beyond. Yay! But of course, this sample has survivor bias. How many people who left the profession in their forties are going to post on HN? How many people who are fifty and hate their jobs are going to post on HN? I love what I do and try to share that love. But my advice to you is…

Are you seriously trying to give unsolicited advice to the young here? Have the years taught you nothing? ;)

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

#112

Post by proex »

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…

Well, I'm going to get into the work of a real life programmer in a year or so, finishing my degree.

Quite frankly, I wouldn't want to be sitting in front of a desktop for 33 years of my own life. Not to criticize you or anything.

But coding my entire life, just doesn't feel right, well as of today and the classic cubicle/desk/chair environnement, maybe I didn't pick the right job, it just feels like a very individualistic/selfish job unless maybe your stuff is open-sourced. How much do you feel you contribute to the society , for example ?

Then again, I'm just starting in the domain, talking from 1 year of work experience and 3 of school experience.

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

#113

Post by MattSayar »

raganwald wrote: post #80

If you're young, be sure to read the responses here very carefully. There are lots of people like me who love what they do at fifty or beyond. Yay! But of course, this sample has survivor bias. How many people who left the profession in their forties are going to post on HN? How many people who are fifty and hate their jobs are going to post on HN? I love what I do and try to share that love. But my advice to you is…

So how did you get to fifty without burning out? The advice I've always seen is a mix of: have a healthy work/life balance, exercise, find satisfaction outside of work, enjoy people more than products, and make sure you actually like what you do and where you do it. Anything else?

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

#114

Post by jebblue »

proex wrote: post #112
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…

Well, I'm going to get into the work of a real life programmer in a year or so, finishing my degree. Quite frankly, I wouldn't want to be sitting in front of a desktop for 33 years of my own life. Not to criticize you or anything. But coding my entire life, just doesn't feel right, well as of today and the classic cubicle/desk/chair environnement, maybe I didn't pick the right job, it just feels like a very individua…

>> But coding my entire life

What about a brick layer, painter, electrician, school teacher, is there anything wrong with those people if they enjoy their work and dedicate their work passions to those professions?

>> How much do you feel you contribute to the society

Society doesn't pay the bills, companies do. Society is appreciating art, going dancing or having a barbecue.

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

#115

Post by PaulHoule »

michaelochurch wrote: post #77

I enjoy programming and would like to be doing it at 50, but with regard to the software industry itself... not in its current state. If you want to be able to survive more than 10 years in the software industry, you need to get manager-level clout and full autonomy over your work. That's non-negotiable. This industry destroys you if you don't have those things. The terrifying thing about the software industry is tha…

I'll say that I've learned alot from doing the crappy work too.

Also, I think most managers don't have the autonomy to "do the right thing" because ultimately they're working for somebody else.

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

#116

Post by mengine »

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…

This sounds pretty depressing to me. You're building the software that allows others to retire while you're a cog in someone else's wheel for another 33 years.

Why not build your own achievements?

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

#117

Post by andyl »

I was a manager in the dot-com era, made good money then took a decade off to climb mountains and raise my kids. Now approaching 50, I've taken up programming and just loving it. Today's tools are incredible - I can do myself what used to take a whole team and literally millions of dollars. Ruby/Rails/Sinatra/Rspec/Postgres/Backbone/Coffeescript/Erlang/Elixir/Chef/etc/etc - we are blessed. Creating with my own hands and having a direct relationship with my customers is so much better than hassling with investors, attorneys, employees etc. I hope to do this the rest of my life.

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

#118

Post by edw519 »

proex wrote: post #112
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…

Well, I'm going to get into the work of a real life programmer in a year or so, finishing my degree. Quite frankly, I wouldn't want to be sitting in front of a desktop for 33 years of my own life. Not to criticize you or anything. But coding my entire life, just doesn't feel right, well as of today and the classic cubicle/desk/chair environnement, maybe I didn't pick the right job, it just feels like a very individua…

1. Critizing # "Not to critize you or anything."

2. open source # the only way to contribute

My quick & easy response is #137 of my ebook (see my profile):

137. How do you put your skills to good?

I’ve always thought that the best way to put your technical skills to the greater good is through your day job, not instead of it.

Some of my days jobs have been to write software to ensure that:

  - people get the right prescription medication on time
  - firetrucks and ambulances get to where they're supposed to be
  - parts that go into cars and planes are properly certified
  - prisoners are kept in jail
  - those same prisoners get proper medical care
  - electronic equipment gets assembled properly and on time
  - medical supplies get dispatched to where they're supposed to
  - insurance claims are processed properly
  - quality data is properly maintained for food items
You don’t need to do charity work on the side in order to contribute to the greater good.

On the other hand, if you don’t think that the work you do during the day contributes to the greater good, then maybe you should consider doing something else with your valuable time.

Do good and get paid. You can do both at the same time.

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

#119

Post by outside1234 »

mengine wrote: post #116
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…

This sounds pretty depressing to me. You're building the software that allows others to retire while you're a cog in someone else's wheel for another 33 years. Why not build your own achievements?

Being a cog in the machine allows you to focus on the code (in a good company) in a way that being in a startup doesn't. I can totally understand and respect that.

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

#120

Post by jackbravo »

proex wrote: post #112
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…

Well, I'm going to get into the work of a real life programmer in a year or so, finishing my degree. Quite frankly, I wouldn't want to be sitting in front of a desktop for 33 years of my own life. Not to criticize you or anything. But coding my entire life, just doesn't feel right, well as of today and the classic cubicle/desk/chair environnement, maybe I didn't pick the right job, it just feels like a very individua…

You just hit the nail. Yes, of course this makes much more sense if you are working with open source and you know your works helps you, your customer, and countless others that you even don't know about. How do people NOT working with open source keep up? I don't know, probably that's why they want to move on to something else.

And also, being a programmer in open source or free software is not only the programming, its also the community and bonds you make while contributing.

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