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Aging programmer

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Re: Aging programmer

#241

Post by moondev »

scarface74 wrote: post #204
w4ffl35 wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the thing that gets frustrating as i age are interviews and code challenges. i'd really prefer a certification that proves i can do xyz which i take once (per year? in my life?). then just decide if you like me based on personality and communication. i have over 200 repositories etc. its redundant, and random code challenges that differ from employer to employer prove next to nothing. 20 years ago it was the norm for…

As someone who is very “certified” when it comes to cloud, I can tell you that certifications mean absolutely nothing and can easily be gamed. I went through the certifications route only as a guided learning path so I would know what I didn’t know. Anyone can pass a multiple choice certification. I got my first AWS certification without ever logging in to AWS. But it was never to get a job or a promotion. I was alre…

You can't game the cncf k8s certs. It's also an interesting indicator to see what date it was awarded. As in yesterday or 3 years ago.

Re: Aging programmer

#242

Post by mike_ivanov »

justrudd wrote: post #225
pyuser583 wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve seen a lot of older programmers. They can wind up working as a team of one because they’re productive enough to do the work of an entire team. I’ve seen this a lot. Hire older dev. Older dev has decades of experience. Older dev creates new product from scratch in a couple weeks. Another issue is that mentoring is focused on junior devs by senior (6-8 years of experience) devs. So you’re less likely to have a sen…

I’m kind of in this boat. I’ve been doing this for 25 years now (jeez). Mentoring a dev with 6 to 8 years experience is a pain in the butt (yes. I know. Not all of you). While I’ve got a pretty good memory, a lot of the times I don’t have a direct or complete answer for their question. I’ll have a tingle of a memory that is similar to their question. So I’ll give them that as a starting point and tell them how I’d ap…

While I’ve got a pretty good memory, a lot of the times I don’t have a direct or complete answer for their question. I’ll have a tingle of a memory that is similar to their question.

The same. Especially under pressure. Which makes it virtually impossible for me to pass an oral technical interview.

Re: Aging programmer

#243

Post by mike_ivanov »

iepathos wrote: post #239
w4ffl35 wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the thing that gets frustrating as i age are interviews and code challenges. i'd really prefer a certification that proves i can do xyz which i take once (per year? in my life?). then just decide if you like me based on personality and communication. i have over 200 repositories etc. its redundant, and random code challenges that differ from employer to employer prove next to nothing. 20 years ago it was the norm for…

I've interviewed people with computer science phd's from schools with good reputations that couldn't program worth a damn when it came to some simple algorithm and practical coding questions in person so, I don't have a lot of faith in certs/degrees for this.

These types can't usually think clearly under pressure. Besides, answering coding questions is very, very different from inventing those algorithms. It's a completely different way of thinking. That's why.

Re: Aging programmer

#244

Post by 988747 »

CrLf wrote: post #220
oaiey wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idealized greybeard would consider effective pair programming as wasted time (there is no contribution by the pair). And all other purposes (like training juniors) is not for immediate benefit.

I get collaborative work. But pair programming for me is a net negative: two people working together outputting less than one person working alone. I don’t even consider it beneficial in the longer term (training, as you put it) given the degraded performance. The very act of programming is buiding a house of cards in your mind and turning it into code before (or while) it collapses due to our limited brain capacity.…

Pair programming works for me in short bursts: when I'm stuck at some problem I would call a colleague, share my screen, and then live-code with me as the driver and him watching me and producing ideas. I find it very effective.

Re: Aging programmer

#245

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

shakezula wrote: post #235
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> unparalleled to any other activity you could invest your time in. Huh. Never heard that before. I invest my time in writing " shippable " code. Even my "farting around" projects are done in a manner as if they were to be released by a Fortune 50 company. That means that Every. Single. Line. Of. Code. that I write is "ship" code. There are a number of projects that I've stopped working on (I archive them, but leave…

I have to agree with parent comment. Leet code interviews, while sometimes obnoxious, are still good exercises. I have learned a lot of nuanced takes from a leet code interview with an interesting question.

OK, fair 'nuff.

Right now, I'm working on a data parser for a backend API that fetches a JSON response, using the built-in NSURLSession stuff, turns it into a Swift Dictionary, then I sort through that Dictionary, and emit a bunch of Swift struct instances for use by the API consumer.

The reason for this, is because the API that I wrote about seven years ago, is giving us performance problems. I wrote about that in this comment[0].

The NSURL stuff has all the sockets and whatnot, as well as all the transport stuff. I've written that stuff before, but I guarantee that the deep geeks that wrote the system have done a far better job of optimizing that stuff, than I ever will.

The JSON parser (built into the OS, but I may think about maybe licensing another one, if this doesn't do what I want) has all the recursive-descent, tree-crawling stuff in it, so I don't need to worry about that. Since this is a multi-threaded system, almost every school algorithm is worthless, but I guarantee that the deep geeks that wrote the system have done a far better job of optimizing that stuff, than I ever will.

I want to get the hell out of this API, as soon as possible, and return to writing the UI stuff that will make my app sing.

The API is being developed as a standalone SPM package that will work on all the Apple systems (iOS, iPadOS, MacOS, WatchOS, and TVOS). The one that it's replacing only worked on iOS. No excuse. I know better, now. I'll also be structuring this to be a lot "swiftier," and more "reactive" than the original API.

The app is a native Swift UIKit app. It's a big mofo. At its peak, it was over 40 screens, but I'm trying to get it down to half that. I've been working on it for a couple of years. It's had a couple of pretty massive pivots, in that time.

UIKit is a big framework. It takes years to learn. I'm looking forward to SwiftUI, but SwiftUI is not at the point, where I'm comfortable committing to a project of this scope.

I've been working with UIKit since 2012. I barely understand it, and they keep adding new stuff, as fast as I can learn it.

Swift is an excellent language. Like every language, you can get the basics down in a few weeks, but it takes years to get the advanced stuff down.

I've been working with Swift since 2014 (the day it was announced). I speak it without an accent.

The project I'm working on has been a wonderful masterclass in Apple iOS development. I also wrote a fairly massive PHP backend, but that was years ago, and it is, I guarantee, not as cool as a really good PHPista could do. That said, it works great, is maintainable, secure as hell, and fairly well-structured for scaling and extension.

The app is gonna be great. Its approaching ship (still a ways off, but we can see the harbor lights, from here). I've been releasing it on TestFlight since it was a month old. By now, I've probably made over 800 TestFlight releases to the team. That's how come we can be so confident in the UI and the Quality. It gets banged on a lot.

But maybe I'm doing it all wrong, and I should stop working on this to practice leetcode.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32921823

Re: Aging programmer

#246

Post by tootie »

dijit wrote: post #2

Here’s something I think a lot of people don’t think on: 40 years old is mid-career. If you expect to retire at 60 (likely 65 these days) and you start working at 20: 40 is smack dab in the middle of your career. I think that notion gets lost when we talk about ageism in tech and then people talk about 40-somethings.

"likely 65 these days"

I think with software jobs paying what they do, retiring at 50 would be pretty easy.

Re: Aging programmer

#247

Post by chadcmulligan »

iepathos wrote: post #239
w4ffl35 wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the thing that gets frustrating as i age are interviews and code challenges. i'd really prefer a certification that proves i can do xyz which i take once (per year? in my life?). then just decide if you like me based on personality and communication. i have over 200 repositories etc. its redundant, and random code challenges that differ from employer to employer prove next to nothing. 20 years ago it was the norm for…

I've interviewed people with computer science phd's from schools with good reputations that couldn't program worth a damn when it came to some simple algorithm and practical coding questions in person so, I don't have a lot of faith in certs/degrees for this.

I'm currently working on an old cad sort of program, its a mess, 20 years of kludges. Working on it is hard - you have to keep all this stuff in your head and I keep saying why the f did he do that, as expected really. Recently I had to add a new bit and use some computational geometry algorithms, it was like a step into a clear dark pool, everything was ordered and nice, which is probably the world of the phd.

I don't know how you test for the ability to do real world stuff - I always think of doctors, they have a system of proctoring they've developed over the years, where you're judged by your peers and rated accordingly and even then its not 100%. I think this is the only way to do it in real life, but I don't know if programming will ever get to that point, it probably will be necessary sometime - when everything is driven by computers.

Re: Aging programmer

#248

Post by scarface74 »

moondev wrote: post #241
scarface74 wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who is very “certified” when it comes to cloud, I can tell you that certifications mean absolutely nothing and can easily be gamed. I went through the certifications route only as a guided learning path so I would know what I didn’t know. Anyone can pass a multiple choice certification. I got my first AWS certification without ever logging in to AWS. But it was never to get a job or a promotion. I was alre…

You can't game the cncf k8s certs. It's also an interesting indicator to see what date it was awarded. As in yesterday or 3 years ago.

So I’ve heard. If someone passed the K8s cert, you expect them to be somewhat competent. If someone honestly studied for AWS certifications without experience, you expect them to be conversant. I have nine of them now (out of 10). But just so I can be conversant. It’s definitely not prove competence in areas where I don’t have real world experience.

Re: Aging programmer

#249

Post by throwyuno »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #245
shakezula wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to agree with parent comment. Leet code interviews, while sometimes obnoxious, are still good exercises. I have learned a lot of nuanced takes from a leet code interview with an interesting question.

OK, fair 'nuff. Right now, I'm working on a data parser for a backend API that fetches a JSON response, using the built-in NSURLSession stuff, turns it into a Swift Dictionary, then I sort through that Dictionary, and emit a bunch of Swift struct instances for use by the API consumer. The reason for this, is because the API that I wrote about seven years ago, is giving us performance problems. I wrote about that in t…

If you’re looking to get hired as an individual contributor somewhere else, maybe you should. But judging from this and other posts of yours, you’re not, so you’re probably not doing it wrong.

It’s just that when interviewing, it can few easier to evaluate some algorithm puzzle than to figure out what it means and whether it’s true that “the app is gonna be great.”

Re: Aging programmer

#250

Post by P5fRxh5kUvp2th »

scarface74 wrote: post #232
Instantix wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometime frameworks are a real help, sometime using it is just making thing bloated and it's hard-linking the future to someone who have the knowledge of the framework.

I would much rather “hard link” the future to a publicly available documented framework than one that a single person who thought their problem was a special snowflake wrote.

Which is why I've been paid good money to both maintain and bring up to speed old RoR applications that were so out of date you had to manually patch the C libraries just to get it working.

This attitude is common, that these frameworks are not, themselves, dependencies to be managed and protected from.

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