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Why you would want to program at fifty (or any other age)

blog.vivekhaldar.com

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Re: Why you would want to program at fifty (or any other age)

#21

Post by gonehome »

kator wrote: post #3
chmike wrote: post #2

I'm fifty and full time programmer. What the OP is missing is that while we have much more experience and are thus wiser on some aspect, our brain is much less agile to adapt and learn new things. If we would learn faster, we would also forget faster and loose the power of experience. Any task where our experience is of value would be satisfying for me to do. Unfortunately we have all these stupid kids around in our…

LOL I'm 46 and just got a gig writing in C again and I love it. I stay current, I am fluent in Python, Perl, PHP, C++, Java, Javascript etc. But it has been nice returning to a nice warm pile of C code. Now before everyone piles on to tell me how horrible C is realize this, in our environment we're handling 500,000 queries per second and have under 100ms to complete a round-trip transaction. Yes you can attempt that…

Why C as opposed to C++?

I'd love to know because my current understanding is that C++ has the same performance as C, but includes the STL which prevents you from having to reimplement more convenient data structures that handle memory nicely (like vectors) yourself.

The ability to create classes/objects is nice too and the language doesn't take away any of the freedom you're given in C either.

Am I missing something about it? Is it just more familiarity with the older language that makes it more comfortable?

Re: Why you would want to program at fifty (or any other age)

#22

Post by mhuffman »

felanthropop wrote: post #9

Please change the font. The word "meme" looks like "mcmc". As a developer that is much closer to 50 than many here are, I can say that it's a crapshoot whether I will be programming when I'm 50. I tired of it after a handful of years, but decided to stay on with it because I can't afford the paycut, and am still am going with it, getting close to 15 years now. But everyday, and I've tried another employer, I still ca…

My love for programming changed some years ago into a "brass tacks", utilitarian method of mostly just scripting (python, ruby) and moving on. Gone are the days that I spent hours making my code faster, more beautiful, more compact. And you know what? I still get as much done, I make more money, and I haven't missed "the good old days" barely any!

Re: Why you would want to program at fifty (or any other age)

#23

Post by varelse »

kator wrote: post #3
chmike wrote: post #2

I'm fifty and full time programmer. What the OP is missing is that while we have much more experience and are thus wiser on some aspect, our brain is much less agile to adapt and learn new things. If we would learn faster, we would also forget faster and loose the power of experience. Any task where our experience is of value would be satisfying for me to do. Unfortunately we have all these stupid kids around in our…

LOL I'm 46 and just got a gig writing in C again and I love it. I stay current, I am fluent in Python, Perl, PHP, C++, Java, Javascript etc. But it has been nice returning to a nice warm pile of C code. Now before everyone piles on to tell me how horrible C is realize this, in our environment we're handling 500,000 queries per second and have under 100ms to complete a round-trip transaction. Yes you can attempt that…

Absolutely! The key is staying current and curious. I'm around your age and I've seen a lot of my peers drop out by transitioning to management and/or finding other priorities in life such as family or hobbies.

The one thing I've found I need as I age is to exercise more and more just to keep my energy level up. I can do all-nighters with the youngest of them (but maybe that's genetic because my mom's still doing them too and she's pushing 80), but I pay a horrible price if I get out of shape.

And before someone objects, I actually like the occasional all-night binge hackathon - all things in moderation - I just bring better quality food than pizza and coke these days.

Re: Why you would want to program at fifty (or any other age)

#24

Post by kator »

chmike wrote: post #10
kator wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LOL I'm 46 and just got a gig writing in C again and I love it. I stay current, I am fluent in Python, Perl, PHP, C++, Java, Javascript etc. But it has been nice returning to a nice warm pile of C code. Now before everyone piles on to tell me how horrible C is realize this, in our environment we're handling 500,000 queries per second and have under 100ms to complete a round-trip transaction. Yes you can attempt that…

I'm glad you perceived the humor in my comment. Sorry for the bad word.

LOL well if you crave C development there is plenty of room on our team.. :-) I am doing a lot of python too but quite a bit of C and some C++ (glue code for some 3rd party API's mainly for our C stuff)

Re: Why you would want to program at fifty (or any other age)

#25

Post by wglb »

gonehome wrote: post #21
kator wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LOL I'm 46 and just got a gig writing in C again and I love it. I stay current, I am fluent in Python, Perl, PHP, C++, Java, Javascript etc. But it has been nice returning to a nice warm pile of C code. Now before everyone piles on to tell me how horrible C is realize this, in our environment we're handling 500,000 queries per second and have under 100ms to complete a round-trip transaction. Yes you can attempt that…

Why C as opposed to C++? I'd love to know because my current understanding is that C++ has the same performance as C, but includes the STL which prevents you from having to reimplement more convenient data structures that handle memory nicely (like vectors) yourself. The ability to create classes/objects is nice too and the language doesn't take away any of the freedom you're given in C either. Am I missing something…

For the same code, C++ is generally measurably slower. One reason is how exceptions, which are not optional, are handled at run time.

Having written some seriously high-throughput low-latency code in C++, you have to turn on bunches of compile flags (e.g., ignore exceptions) to get the best out of it.

Re: Why you would want to program at fifty (or any other age)

#30

Post by jonjacky »

Consider Peter Neumann, who has been hacking since the early 1950s. At age 80, he is beginning work on the 5-year DARPA-funded Clean Slate project to "build something new from the bottom up" to respond to security problems. Recent HN posts link to NY Times stories:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4714328

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4722781

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