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On Getting Older in Tech

corgibytes.com

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Re: On Getting Older in Tech

#141

Post by dragandj »

anondon wrote: post #82
wcummings wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PR BS & founder worship. If he wasnt spending time on PR he wouldn't be doing interviews

> If he wasnt spending time on PR he wouldn't be doing interviews There's a difference between spending minimal time and no time at all on business, PR aspects. > founder worship I only stated the facts. Where is the worship?

If by facts you mean "the picture that Musk's PR machine wants you to believe as facts" then yes. Unless you spend lots of time with him personally so you state that first-hand. Somehow, I don't believe in superhumans. Elon is undoubtedly smart and successfull, but he is not a Batman (or Superman, or whatever).

Re: On Getting Older in Tech

#142

Post by wobbleblob »

Oh cool, he made a webshop with an RPG backend. I last did that about 15 years ago, it looked just as awful, and just like him, I was so proud of my achievement at the time, that I couldn't see what an abomination it really was. It's a pity, that customer deserved better.

I totally believe age discrimination is real, and the Corgibytes author hits the nail on the head with:

> Only as Good as Your Last Two Years of Accomplishments

> Kent Beck has suggested that, with consistent use of pair programming, the capabilities of programmers don’t differ much after two years of experience.

Experience in our field rots away at an amazing rate. I don't think it's as short as 2 years, but if you're still regularly using techniques you mastered 10+ years ago, you're probably falling behind. I don't think lawyers, doctors or stock brokers have this problem.

Re: On Getting Older in Tech

#143

Post by metafunctor »

smokestack wrote: post #135
metafunctor wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah. The fact that this post exists is evidence that ageism is a thing. What makes you think older people are passionate about the latest and greatest JavaScript frameworks? That is not my experience at all. New frameworks are just the same old stuff in a new wrapper. We've seen it all several times over. Like, backprop was a cool thing in the late 80s. I, too, find this post sad, but probably not for the same reason…

> think you are a useless dinosaur if you don't know what the new hot thing is about. Welcome to the technology industry.

Hi! I've been here since the late 80s. What do you want to learn?

Re: On Getting Older in Tech

#144

Post by hultner »

bbcbasic wrote: post #99
mianos wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also Atlassian says the same. They said last week that they just can't get senior people in Sydney. Personally I feel older people are not as good at the little puzzles they set as an entry test.

I applied to Atlassian many years ago and what struck me is their refusal to entertain non java devs to cross over. If they want more seniors they should consider c# or other language devs who could cross over.

That is actually a really hazardous approach, almost every job I've had as a software developer have introduced me to a new language and as someone who's been writing code for 10+ years there's hardly a large struggle to learn a new language or framework, especially if it's just another c-like imperative language.

Re: On Getting Older in Tech

#145

Post by inimino »

grzm wrote: post #113
gaius wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But I can't help but imagine how different the world would be if he had used Scheme as a starting point. I've heard that he did in fact use Scheme, but the suits insisted on the whole curly-brackets-and-semicolons thing so they could call it Javascript and piggyback on Sun's marketing efforts.

To be fair, he only took some of the semi-colons.

He took an option on the semi-colons.

Re: On Getting Older in Tech

#146

Post by hultner »

bshimmin wrote: post #128
crdoconnor wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oddly Google's and Atlassian's software have been getting steadily worse over time but I'm sure that's just coincidental.

I can't really speak to Google's software because there's so much of it and it does so many different things (much of which I try my hardest to avoid), but I've been using JIRA for a long time - probably on and off since about 2010 - and I actually think it's a lot better now than it ever was.

Largely agreed, we're still running a confluence version from 2010 at one organization that I'm a board member of and I must say that it doesn't fare well with the more mobile oriented ecosystem of today.

Re: On Getting Older in Tech

#147

Post by smokestack »

wobbleblob wrote: post #142

Oh cool, he made a webshop with an RPG backend. I last did that about 15 years ago, it looked just as awful, and just like him, I was so proud of my achievement at the time, that I couldn't see what an abomination it really was. It's a pity, that customer deserved better. I totally believe age discrimination is real, and the Corgibytes author hits the nail on the head with: > Only as Good as Your Last Two Years of Ac…

I doubt that a lawyer, doctor, or (especially) investor could survive more than a year without constantly investing time in learning about their field.

Re: On Getting Older in Tech

#148

Post by smokestack »

metafunctor wrote: post #143
smokestack wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> think you are a useless dinosaur if you don't know what the new hot thing is about. Welcome to the technology industry.

Hi! I've been here since the late 80s. What do you want to learn?

Tell me how you've survived in technology without learning new technologies!

Re: On Getting Older in Tech

#149

Post by whostolemyhat »

blacktulip wrote: post #139

Any language is superior to JavaScript.

Oh, give it a rest with this shit. Literally every thread where Javascript is mentioned, even in passing like this one, someone feels the need to pop up with the 'Javascript is terrible' meme. I get it, lots of people don't like Javascript, but this comment adds absolutely nothing to the discussion and just drives people away from HN since the same negativity and tired one-liner gets churned out over and over again.

If you absolutely must tell the world that you don't like JS, at least be interesting or actually list your reasons so there's something to discuss.

Re: On Getting Older in Tech

#150

Post by jgdx »

ash wrote: post #114

Article mentions "RPG" many times: "RPG back-end", "RPG developer". For those who wonder what it it (like me), it is not a "Role Playing Game", it is IBM RPG language: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_RPG

How the author failed to explain this abbreviation is beyond me. Who in their 50s doesn't know that you spell out important concepts and key terms, then shorten them in parentheses?
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