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I would have hired Doug, but...

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Re: I would have hired Doug, but...

#211

Post by lukego »

innocentoldguy wrote: post #192
michaelangerman wrote: post #19

I am 55 and have been programming computers since 1975 when I was 15 years old. Do the math, I have been programming now for 40 years. Recently, I had a conversation with someone else about this topic and I told them that I have never been so excited about my career, the field of computer science, and most importantly the opportunities that exist today in the field of technology. The excitement surrounding too many t…

I'm approaching 50 and I think programming is more exciting now than it has ever been. There are so many interesting technologies out there that I want to learn, master, and use (e.g. Elixir, Erlang, Clojure, Swift, Lua, Haskell, and myriad frameworks). I also like the way open source options have completely eliminated the necessity for me to work with commercial languages and technologies, which I always found a bit…

Tangent: I find it interesting that Erlang is an emerging technology that you are interested in learning at age 50, and yet it has been used in production with a steadily growing community since you were in your 20s. It has simply taken a few decades to grow enough to be a common item on programmers' radars.

I find it fascinating that the gradual adoption of new technology maps onto human time spans like this. This makes me optimistic that even technology that is far ahead of its time can succeed when developed with patience.

Re: I would have hired Doug, but...

#212

Post by mortehu »

lurkinggrue wrote: post #96

Well remember: 74 is the new 24, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7u5c-Qndqio (The artist that did that music video is 74)

Note that he did the music, not the video itself, which is taken from the demo "Spin"[1] by Andromeda Software Development.

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFqMnVDIuvc

Re: I would have hired Doug, but...

#213

Post by kokey »

lukego wrote: post #211
innocentoldguy wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm approaching 50 and I think programming is more exciting now than it has ever been. There are so many interesting technologies out there that I want to learn, master, and use (e.g. Elixir, Erlang, Clojure, Swift, Lua, Haskell, and myriad frameworks). I also like the way open source options have completely eliminated the necessity for me to work with commercial languages and technologies, which I always found a bit…

Tangent: I find it interesting that Erlang is an emerging technology that you are interested in learning at age 50, and yet it has been used in production with a steadily growing community since you were in your 20s. It has simply taken a few decades to grow enough to be a common item on programmers' radars. I find it fascinating that the gradual adoption of new technology maps onto human time spans like this. This m…

It helps that you can run it for free on anything from an iDevice to a hand crafted hipsterbuntu server farm, where in the past you had to do it on expensive Ericsson kit deep inside of telco land.

Re: I would have hired Doug, but...

#214

Post by fit2rule »

michaelangerman wrote: post #19

I am 55 and have been programming computers since 1975 when I was 15 years old. Do the math, I have been programming now for 40 years. Recently, I had a conversation with someone else about this topic and I told them that I have never been so excited about my career, the field of computer science, and most importantly the opportunities that exist today in the field of technology. The excitement surrounding too many t…

I'm exactly 10 years behind you - started programming computers as a job, i.e. employed, when I was 15 in 1985, and I expect I will be coding until I die. Its the only way I see a future for myself as a developer. That, or learn farming.

Re: I would have hired Doug, but...

#215

Post by ericssmith »

SCHiM wrote: post #62
lisper wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess I might as well pile on. Turned 50 last year. Got my first paycheck for writing code junior year of high school (writing BASIC code on a Commodore PET!) Working on my fifth startup now.

I can't imagine all the technologies and skills you guys have acquired. If I may derail the conversation a little bit, may I ask if/how you use the things you've learned today? I mean, is it things like paradigms that have stuck with you like OOP/functional/w\e, or do you always structure your exception handling in a certain way, no matter the language? Are there skills/technologies you've been using since you've sta…

Here is the first program I ever entered into a computer.

1 8 + A 5 + 0 0 + 6 5 + 0 1 + 8 5 + F A + A 9 + 0 0 + 8 5 + F B + 4 C + 4 F + 1 C

I remember how much like some kind of incantation it was. I still get that feeling. And I've had the good fortune to work some fun, powerful, and interesting magic with those incantations.

I suspect that most younger people haven't yet seen their tech choices slip into decay and disuse. And they hang on tightly, hoping to expend less effort in learning as time goes by and they master that tech. It's a vain hope. The essential part of the experience is the underlying creativity, the joy of getting to the next ledge, and really understanding what a marvelous thing a computer is.

Re: I would have hired Doug, but...

#216

Post by lrobb »

The more interesting post was the link to Phil G's blog post about the MIT reunion: "The medical doctor was at the peak of his career and in no danger of being fired. The university professor had the security of tenure and was looking forward to a defined benefit pension starting six years from now. The corporate attorney was finishing up a prosperous career. The engineers who’d chosen to work in industry, however, were a varied lot. A woman who’d taken a job at a defense contractor was still there, 30 years later. The super-wizard Lisp Machine programmer was now in a senior technical, but non-supervisory role, at a multi-billion dollar dotcom (not necessarily getting paid more than a competent 30-year-old, however). About half of the engineers, however, talked about being pushed into a financially uncomfortable early retirement and/or not being able to find work."

Re: I would have hired Doug, but...

#217

Post by emodendroket »

billmalarky wrote: post #157
emodendroket wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hope you don't have to learn this from experience, but even young people can experience RSI and need special keyboards.

They say my generation (millennials) will suffer significantly higher rates of RSI due to more keyboard, game controller, and smartphone use. RSI is no joke.

The most frustrating thing about it is how hard it is to find knowledgeable people. I went in to the doctor for RSI symptoms that were nothing like carpal tunnel and she insisted I had to have carpal tunnel and started talking about getting surgery to release it within like 5 minutes of us meeting. Perhaps the most galling part of this was where she went "here, let me show you" and had me do the various exercises of holding your hands together that are supposed to lead to tingling if you have CTS and when that didn't work she just said "well anyway, you have carpal tunnel syndrome." Thankfully my physical and occupational therapists were more helpful.

Re: I would have hired Doug, but...

#218

Post by joeguilmette »

ericssmith wrote: post #26
michaelangerman wrote: post #19

I am 55 and have been programming computers since 1975 when I was 15 years old. Do the math, I have been programming now for 40 years. Recently, I had a conversation with someone else about this topic and I told them that I have never been so excited about my career, the field of computer science, and most importantly the opportunities that exist today in the field of technology. The excitement surrounding too many t…

I am 53 and started programming in 1977. I feel EXACTLY the same as you.

I'm 30, started 1.5 years ago, and feel the same :)

Re: I would have hired Doug, but...

#219

Post by darkmighty »

bliti wrote: post #154
vezzy-fnord wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It will keep morphing and completely remove desktop computing as we know it. The same way desktop computers removed mainframes and terminals. I wonder when smartphone platforms will become self-hosting.

Me too. Just give it a bit if time. When some yet to be born kid realizes how dumb and wasteful the cloud is (their words, not mine) and comes up with whatever it is that will replace them. Just like those meddling kids came up with that thing that allows me to type this post without a physical keyboard.

It's not so simple, if you look from first principles. It will always depend on the cost of communicating versus the benefits of economies of scale in computing. Currently, most many can only be done in the cloud due to the massive scale benefits and relatively low communication costs. If communicating doesn't get cheaper but smartphones get massively more powerful and roomy overnight this might change; but it is a fact of computer science that there are economies of scale to lumping queries from different users.

Re: I would have hired Doug, but...

#220

Post by lectrick »

romankolpak wrote: post #210
lectrick wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m 43 and I do worry about this. But… not so much. Been programming since 1982 when I was 10... on a Commodore PET. I was instantly addicted, even though it was a green on black screen, needed to load code on a slow cassette-tape device, and was slow as heck. ;) You see, in this career you have to be willing to drop everything and learn a new thing. All the time. Make learning new things part of your career. My stra…

is Elixir a new trend? Because it seems I'm completely out of the loop here.

Yes, and maybe. ;)

http://elixir-lang.org/

So far I love it. It's bent my brain into pretty shapes.

It borrows a lot from Erlang, which it sits on top of, such as incredibly fast process spawning, and the OTP library.

But its syntax is sooooo much nicer (at least coming from Ruby).

The potentially extreme fault tolerance ("nine nines" is not unheard-of), and things like hot code deployment, appeals to me as a web developer.

It also has some unique features as far as languages go, I believe... such as full-fledged macros in a non-homoiconic language.

If you want to dabble in it, Dave Thomas' book on it is awesome: https://pragprog.com/book/elixir/programming-elixir

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