Learning to code at 56
131–140 of 165 posts
Re: Learning to code at 56
#132Re: Learning to code at 56
#133At 51, I've noticed there are really two kinds of people at my age... people who are completely beaten, and people who are winning. Once you hit 40 or so, the scope of mortality really hits you. You realize that you've probably already had half your productive life, maybe half a career. You start seeing peers die of "old age" - heart attacks and strokes and stuff. For most, they're beaten, defeated. They decide this…
At 40+ I acutely realize how little time is left and how little one can accomplish.
Every day I am reminded on how quickly time passes and hevel (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecclesiastes) of it all.
Again, I enjoy the little things: the random coffee shop with my SO, my kids' smile, the view from the bridge when I am biking and so on.
But starting anything with longer term implications seems so useless.
Silly example: let's say I decided to learn to sing. I am truly tone-deaf and hilariously bad at singing. Maybe after years of constant practice I could approach some sort of basic proficiency but it would achieved at a cost of forsaking so many other experiences.
We have so little time that I have trouble making longer plans.
None of us have 10,000 years that Bill Murray had in Groundhog Day.
Re: Learning to code at 56
#134At 51, I've noticed there are really two kinds of people at my age... people who are completely beaten, and people who are winning. Once you hit 40 or so, the scope of mortality really hits you. You realize that you've probably already had half your productive life, maybe half a career. You start seeing peers die of "old age" - heart attacks and strokes and stuff. For most, they're beaten, defeated. They decide this…
Re: Learning to code at 56
#135At 51, I've noticed there are really two kinds of people at my age... people who are completely beaten, and people who are winning. Once you hit 40 or so, the scope of mortality really hits you. You realize that you've probably already had half your productive life, maybe half a career. You start seeing peers die of "old age" - heart attacks and strokes and stuff. For most, they're beaten, defeated. They decide this…
Re: Learning to code at 56
#136At 51, I've noticed there are really two kinds of people at my age... people who are completely beaten, and people who are winning. Once you hit 40 or so, the scope of mortality really hits you. You realize that you've probably already had half your productive life, maybe half a career. You start seeing peers die of "old age" - heart attacks and strokes and stuff. For most, they're beaten, defeated. They decide this…
Re: Learning to code at 56
#137He's never learned to type, imagine coding with hunt-and-peck. Characters like ()[]. he had no idea where to find. He didn't have much understanding of file systems; so things like saving and renaming were tricky.
Anyway, he was pretty thrilled with getting a "hello world" example and one that asks your name and prints out a greeting.
Re: Learning to code at 56
#138At 51, I've noticed there are really two kinds of people at my age... people who are completely beaten, and people who are winning. Once you hit 40 or so, the scope of mortality really hits you. You realize that you've probably already had half your productive life, maybe half a career. You start seeing peers die of "old age" - heart attacks and strokes and stuff. For most, they're beaten, defeated. They decide this…
Re: Learning to code at 56
#139At 51, I've noticed there are really two kinds of people at my age... people who are completely beaten, and people who are winning. Once you hit 40 or so, the scope of mortality really hits you. You realize that you've probably already had half your productive life, maybe half a career. You start seeing peers die of "old age" - heart attacks and strokes and stuff. For most, they're beaten, defeated. They decide this…
How do you prioritize on medium to long term plans? At 40+ I acutely realize how little time is left and how little one can accomplish. Every day I am reminded on how quickly time passes and hevel ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecclesiastes ) of it all. Again, I enjoy the little things: the random coffee shop with my SO, my kids' smile, the view from the bridge when I am biking and so on. But starting anything with…
And about the particular example of learning to sing, about 2 years of deliberate practice with a good teacher will get you where you want to be, so, not that big of a commitment in the grand scheme of things, I'd say.
Re: Learning to code at 56
#140At 51, I've noticed there are really two kinds of people at my age... people who are completely beaten, and people who are winning. Once you hit 40 or so, the scope of mortality really hits you. You realize that you've probably already had half your productive life, maybe half a career. You start seeing peers die of "old age" - heart attacks and strokes and stuff. For most, they're beaten, defeated. They decide this…