Why You Should Hire an Old Programmer • Hacker News Board

Re: Why You Should Hire an Old Programmer

#121

Post by ryandrake » Mon, Jul 03, 2017, 2:50 PM UTC

bmj wrote: post #81

Mouse47 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. I've seen 55+ year old programmers write what was essentially a message queue persisted in a database table, processed by a cron job. We frequently had problems with duplicate processing of messages, due to multiple cron jobs running at once. I've personally argued against a key-value store schema in SQL Server and was in favor of a flat-table design. In our case, there were records of different 'types', and eac…

I work in an organization that is relatively balanced as far as age goes (I'm 45). The most senior-level engineers tend to be older than me, though there are a few younger guys (still over 30). Perhaps I'm just fortunate, but here's what I've observed: We tend to be fairly agile with regard to new technologies, and much of that is driven by the architects. A few of the young folks will recommend bleeding edge platfor…

In some cases, the Old Ways and the Old Software is better, and it takes wisdom and experience to identify these cases. "Because it's old" is almost never a good reason not to use some software or technique (code does not rot). "Because it's new" is sometimes a good reason to try something, though.

Re: Why You Should Hire an Old Programmer

#122

Post by mmmpop » Mon, Jul 03, 2017, 2:52 PM UTC

timwaagh wrote: post #76

js8 wrote: post #50

I think programmers should reframe the problem. If cognitive decline is real, why would anyone hire anybody over 40? Yet there are plenty managers, politicians, doctors, lawyers, salespeople, engineers, etc. who are over 40. If you want a culture where people retire at 40, go for it. But please don't pretend that programmers are "special" in that the decline in their skills is worse than decline in skills of anybody…

programmers actually need to think sometimes. the jobs mentioned are more routine and rely on soft skills and experience a lot. I do not mean any disrespect by that. mathematicians are also best when they are young, but unlike programmers work in academia and get to teach until retirement, whereas programmers get replaced.

Yes but aren't probably a good 2/3 of "developer" jobs the relentless pursuit of arranging the chaos into routine? Funnily, is not a "routine" a building block of a programming language??

Re: Why You Should Hire an Old Programmer

#123

Post by liveoneggs » Mon, Jul 03, 2017, 2:52 PM UTC

thehardsphere wrote: post #86

liveoneggs wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I enjoy your attempt to use "it's not the years it's the mileage" but your assertion that there is some way to gain "experience" without "time" doesn't make a lot of sense.

I did not say you gain gain experience without time; I said you can gain experience without becoming old. That is, you can gain the kind of experience the author discusses before reaching age 40.

How do you think age happens if not by way of time? :)

Re: Why You Should Hire an Old Programmer

#124

Post by mmmpop » Mon, Jul 03, 2017, 2:53 PM UTC

timwaagh wrote: post #111

emodendroket wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doctors don't need to think? Come on, man.

they do but it is not the same thing at all. we need to think for hours, finding the right algorithm to compute something. doctors need to make the right decision in very little time based on their experience and knowledge.

> finding the right algorithm to compute something

Perhaps English is not your first language because you sound like me at 19 explaining to my dad why I haven't finished his website lol

Re: Why You Should Hire an Old Programmer

#125

Post by tvaughan » Mon, Jul 03, 2017, 2:55 PM UTC

For hire: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tvaughan

Re: Why You Should Hire an Old Programmer

#126

Post by Clubber » Mon, Jul 03, 2017, 2:55 PM UTC

autokad wrote: post #8

How do older programmers deal with coding interviews from companies like facebook / google? i feel like those advantage people who just finished their algorithms class, or have time to practice specifically for it.

I have no desire to work for either Facebook or google. I like small / medium companies where I can cover a lot of ground and make my own design decisions.

Unfortunately the small / medium companies I work for tend to get acquired by large companies and I'm forced to work for a large company for a couple of years due to inertia. It doesn't take me long to yearn for a smaller company.

Re: Why You Should Hire an Old Programmer

#127

Post by quickben » Mon, Jul 03, 2017, 2:56 PM UTC

sotojuan wrote: post #114

quickben wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We do awesome (36 here). 1. Because I've had many interviews where people ask one of perhaps 200 questions over and over (reverse a double linked list, serialize a tree). 2. I do complicated stuff, daily . Multithreaded communications patterns. Cross platform code. Memory / performance optimizations. Etc. All syntax from plain C to C++14 plus extensions. When I have to do a basic data structure operation, on a single…

> I do complicated stuff, daily. Multithreaded communications patterns. Cross platform code. Memory / performance optimizations. Etc. All syntax from plain C to C++14 plus extensions. When I have to do a basic data structure operation, on a single thread, it's actually relaxing. What about those who don't? Plenty of programming jobs don't require this kind of stuff, at least not everyday. These kind of jobs that keep…

I agree. But you have to keep pushing you know.

I had a 9 months hole early in my career (personal reasons). I started coding a game from scratch. I never finished it, but learned a ton and it's actually a great talking point in interviews.

I had a government job at one point. Turned out to be different than advertised. No brains required ( except people being nasty to each other it seemed). Most poisonous place I've seen. I left that.

It helps that I'm in Toronto and there are job offers around, but it still takes me a week and 400-500 resumes sent when I hunt for a new job.

Bottom line: one has to keep pushing to get where he wants to be.

Re: Why You Should Hire an Old Programmer

#128

Post by twii » Mon, Jul 03, 2017, 2:57 PM UTC

What a ridiculous assumption. It is not about age! I've seen both young and old horrible coders. Of course you can have a slight advantage from experience if your'e older, but the quality of that experience remains relative to the person in question. You might have 10 years of experience doing things the wrong way!

Growing older doesn't make you a 10x dev, just as it won't make an average musician a superstar.

Re: Why You Should Hire an Old Programmer

#129

Post by vpeters25 » Mon, Jul 03, 2017, 3:02 PM UTC

Clubber wrote: post #115

Mouse47 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. I've seen 55+ year old programmers write what was essentially a message queue persisted in a database table, processed by a cron job. We frequently had problems with duplicate processing of messages, due to multiple cron jobs running at once. I've personally argued against a key-value store schema in SQL Server and was in favor of a flat-table design. In our case, there were records of different 'types', and eac…

>All of the business logic was in stored procedures. I've seen a stored procedure with triple nested cursors spanning 2000 lines. Our 'senior' developer would take weeks to make changes to this thing. I'm and old programmer and I've been arguing against business logic in SPs since SQL Server 6.5 and have been losing ever since. That's not an old/young argument. It's because vendors (in this case MS) recommend putting…

> I'm and old programmer and I've been arguing against business logic in SPs since SQL Server 6.5 and have been losing ever since. That's not an old/young argument.

> It's because vendors (in this case MS) recommend putting code in SPs. I suspect it has to do with lock-in.

If i recall correctly, back in the dark ages of Classic ASP and SQL Server 6.5, database stored procedures was the only feasible way of implementing a reasonably performing web application.

Re: Why You Should Hire an Old Programmer

#130

Post by ryandrake » Mon, Jul 03, 2017, 3:02 PM UTC

js8 wrote: post #50

I think programmers should reframe the problem. If cognitive decline is real, why would anyone hire anybody over 40? Yet there are plenty managers, politicians, doctors, lawyers, salespeople, engineers, etc. who are over 40. If you want a culture where people retire at 40, go for it. But please don't pretend that programmers are "special" in that the decline in their skills is worse than decline in skills of anybody…

The more I think about it, the more I believe this is indeed the fatal flaw in nearly all^ of the arguments against hiring experienced programmers. For any service I can think of where skill is needed, whether it be patching my roof, fixing my car, doing surgery on me, representing me in court, flying the airplane I'm on, I would rather pay more to have a greybeard doing it than have someone fresh out of training/college doing it. I'd guess most people are not even remotely concerned about "cognitive decline" in any of these scenarios. What makes programming different?

^ (all the arguments that don't boil down to "you have to pay them more")