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I'm 85 and I Learned To Code. You Should Too.

blog.codehs.com

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Re: I'm 85 and I Learned To Code. You Should Too.

#31

Post by psionski »

gcheong wrote: post #19
michaelochurch wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think when I run a company, instead of targeting only young people (on the assumption that they can learn new stuff faster) I'm going to give a bump to people who are 35+ and are still learning new stuff. It's the same theory as is behind choosing an attractive older person. You know that the good-looking 35-year-old has started to age and is still taking care of him- or herself; the good-looking 20-year-old could…

Why do you think creativity and curiosity require protection through insubordination and rebellion?

Because "fitting in" means exactly that - you fit in space that is just big enough to allow you to work and not much else. Creativity and curiosity require wandering around.

Re: I'm 85 and I Learned To Code. You Should Too.

#32

Post by cafard »

jere wrote: post #5

Seizure warning. Anyway, very impressive stuff. Too often, people seem to give up on learning new stuff at an older age. Usually around 30.

At age 30, I dimly remembered some Fortran IV from a freshman class. At 32, I taught myself assembler (a now obsolete one), at 33 went back to school...

Re: I'm 85 and I Learned To Code. You Should Too.

#33

Post by michaelochurch »

DigitalJack wrote: post #10
michaelochurch wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think when I run a company, instead of targeting only young people (on the assumption that they can learn new stuff faster) I'm going to give a bump to people who are 35+ and are still learning new stuff. It's the same theory as is behind choosing an attractive older person. You know that the good-looking 35-year-old has started to age and is still taking care of him- or herself; the good-looking 20-year-old could…

Yeah, because it's pretty damn remarkable for somebody to learn something at the ripe old age of 35. Imagine that. Still learning new stuff.

It shouldn't be, but 13 years of corporate subordination and forced creative atrophy puts a lot of people into an out-of-shape state that's hard to recover from. There's nothing natural about this sort of premature mediocrity. If we tear the corporate system down, Bastille-style, we'll see a lot more badass older people, which will be a great thing for the world.

Re: I'm 85 and I Learned To Code. You Should Too.

#34

Post by michaelochurch »

gcheong wrote: post #19
michaelochurch wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think when I run a company, instead of targeting only young people (on the assumption that they can learn new stuff faster) I'm going to give a bump to people who are 35+ and are still learning new stuff. It's the same theory as is behind choosing an attractive older person. You know that the good-looking 35-year-old has started to age and is still taking care of him- or herself; the good-looking 20-year-old could…

Why do you think creativity and curiosity require protection through insubordination and rebellion?

Creative people are willing to follow another's lead if they believe it to be beneficial, as in a mentor/protege relationship where the mentor is clearly superior at the craft. People who will put themselves into the total subordination that the corporate world expects (in which you de-prioritize your own progress, education, and career in favor of managerial-organizational statism) lose their creative capability and rarely are able to get it back.

Re: I'm 85 and I Learned To Code. You Should Too.

#35

Post by michaelochurch »

Surio wrote: post #18
michaelochurch wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think when I run a company, instead of targeting only young people (on the assumption that they can learn new stuff faster) I'm going to give a bump to people who are 35+ and are still learning new stuff. It's the same theory as is behind choosing an attractive older person. You know that the good-looking 35-year-old has started to age and is still taking care of him- or herself; the good-looking 20-year-old could…

>> I think when I run a company, 1. What will you pay? 2. Do you allow for remote working? 3. Email is available on my profile. :-) Thanks for posting the sentiment publicly. Much appreciated. >> enough of an insubordinate/rebellious streak to protect their creativity and curiosity through their 20s, despite their corporate masters' attempts to destroy it This is a very nice thing to say (and I consider myself in tha…

Not running a company, now or in the near future. Don't have the money to self-fund, nor the connections to get funding.

I try to bring light to the world in the way I can. Perhaps my ideas will percolate into power over time.

Re: I'm 85 and I Learned To Code. You Should Too.

#36

Post by heathlilley »

michaelochurch wrote: post #33
DigitalJack wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, because it's pretty damn remarkable for somebody to learn something at the ripe old age of 35. Imagine that. Still learning new stuff.

It shouldn't be, but 13 years of corporate subordination and forced creative atrophy puts a lot of people into an out-of-shape state that's hard to recover from. There's nothing natural about this sort of premature mediocrity. If we tear the corporate system down, Bastille-style, we'll see a lot more badass older people, which will be a great thing for the world.

Well I'm here to say that you can break the shackles. At 37 I might still toil in the Java mines during the day, but at night I am learning Ruby, Rails, NoSQL, zsh and other Open Source/less than enterprisey stuff.

I might not be able to debug a rails app as fast as I can a JEE app but I can still grok/reason/solve issues on the platform.

Re: I'm 85 and I Learned To Code. You Should Too.

#37

Post by michaelochurch »

heathlilley wrote: post #36
michaelochurch wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It shouldn't be, but 13 years of corporate subordination and forced creative atrophy puts a lot of people into an out-of-shape state that's hard to recover from. There's nothing natural about this sort of premature mediocrity. If we tear the corporate system down, Bastille-style, we'll see a lot more badass older people, which will be a great thing for the world.

Well I'm here to say that you can break the shackles. At 37 I might still toil in the Java mines during the day, but at night I am learning Ruby, Rails, NoSQL, zsh and other Open Source/less than enterprisey stuff. I might not be able to debug a rails app as fast as I can a JEE app but I can still grok/reason/solve issues on the platform.

You absolutely can break the shackles, and should. I'm just saying it's (admirably) insubordinate.

From a typical boss-man perspective, your performance is reduced by this extracurricular work. You're probably working late into the evening, and thinking about Ruby during the day. You're probably planning a move to something better.

You can't be fired for that alone, but it puts you at risk of being in the socially excluded, not-getting-the-benefit-of-the-doubt category.

One of the issues with side projects is that admitting to having them breaks the Fundamental Subordinate Dishonesty (http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2012/12/12/fundamental-s...). You're "supposed" to be putting all available energy into your job, or at least respect authority enough to put effort into that illusion. Vacation is okay: that's just taking a break. Off-hours work isn't (in typical workplaces).

Re: I'm 85 and I Learned To Code. You Should Too.

#38

Post by Surio »

michaelochurch wrote: post #35
Surio wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> I think when I run a company, 1. What will you pay? 2. Do you allow for remote working? 3. Email is available on my profile. :-) Thanks for posting the sentiment publicly. Much appreciated. >> enough of an insubordinate/rebellious streak to protect their creativity and curiosity through their 20s, despite their corporate masters' attempts to destroy it This is a very nice thing to say (and I consider myself in tha…

Not running a company, now or in the near future. Don't have the money to self-fund, nor the connections to get funding. I try to bring light to the world in the way I can. Perhaps my ideas will percolate into power over time.

>> Not running a company....etc, etc.

Oh, I got it first time alright. I was just pleased at the mention and wanted to acknowledge it. :-)

>> Perhaps my ideas will percolate into power over time.

Hope springs eternal. ;-)

Re: I'm 85 and I Learned To Code. You Should Too.

#39

Post by heathlilley »

michaelochurch wrote: post #37
heathlilley wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well I'm here to say that you can break the shackles. At 37 I might still toil in the Java mines during the day, but at night I am learning Ruby, Rails, NoSQL, zsh and other Open Source/less than enterprisey stuff. I might not be able to debug a rails app as fast as I can a JEE app but I can still grok/reason/solve issues on the platform.

You absolutely can break the shackles, and should. I'm just saying it's (admirably) insubordinate. From a typical boss-man perspective, your performance is reduced by this extracurricular work. You're probably working late into the evening, and thinking about Ruby during the day. You're probably planning a move to something better. You can't be fired for that alone, but it puts you at risk of being in the socially ex…

I remember talking to a previous boss saying, "I've been thinking of starting skunk works project 'X'. Where 'X' was introducing an ORM, JQuery, or cleaning up some old code/modules. And the answer was always "I'd rather you work on the backlog [of features]."

IMHO, he line of thinking where employers want you only grinding on today's problems rather than additionally incrementally honing the skills to innovate is a broken methodology and does not work for software. The barrier to learning these skills is too low to expect people not to want to do these things and it keeps getting lower.

Re: I'm 85 and I Learned To Code. You Should Too.

#40

Post by Spoom »

The comments on the article itself (not here) make me sad. It almost immediately devolves into a language war. Why is it that some people always have to find something to complain about?

I bet a conversation with the author of this article would be very interesting. With the attitude he demonstrated here, he probably has a lot to teach.

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