I am well over 50. It has been a while since I took up a wholly new programming language, but I keep my hand in with quite a few. I tend to vote with radicalbyte's friend--being able to choose how much and when to work would be nice, but getting out of the house and working is definitely a good thing.
Why you would want to program at fifty (or any other age)
31–37 of 37 posts
Re: Why you would want to program at fifty (or any other age)
#32I am 44 years old and on disability. I still try to write programs, but I write small ones. Due to a mental illness and a stroke, my abilities are limited, and I cannot work a job, but I keep on trying.
Re: Why you would want to program at fifty (or any other age)
#33In my opinion, you have a lot to offer.
1) From a user experience / marketing standpoint - (target demo's have a better grasp of their own likes and "dislikes" when engaging an application.) - if one of the targeted demo.
There are "discoveries" that usually happen through conversation. A mature programmer can provide an entrepreneur perspective or another idea to improve the product due to the architecture of other programs (built in the past).
2) Depending on the Programmer; the older way of training code revolved around meticulous detail) - also very helpful sometimes in avoiding bugs.
Re: Why you would want to program at fifty (or any other age)
#34Please 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…
The pain in programming is that we have this 21st-century superpower but the only way we can make money is to suit 19th-century industrial masters who don't understand what's possible with technology. They just want us to point our magical tech wands at their existing machines and make them run faster. If we do this kind of thing for too long (and it's the only way to get a reliable income) we lose that "superpower"…
I've recently come to the conclusion that anyone who masters the following two skills would already be one of the best leaders/CEOs around:
(1) Knowing what's possible or will be possible with cutting-edge technology
(2) Understanding the pulse of the market
Each skill is already rare, but having both is an incredible combination.
Re: Why you would want to program at fifty (or any other age)
#35Please 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…
The pain in programming is that we have this 21st-century superpower but the only way we can make money is to suit 19th-century industrial masters who don't understand what's possible with technology. They just want us to point our magical tech wands at their existing machines and make them run faster. If we do this kind of thing for too long (and it's the only way to get a reliable income) we lose that "superpower"…
Huh, what's all this capitalism talk... as far as I know, his main pain in programming was just this:
> I enjoy the freedom and art and creativeness, but when things don't work, which happens a lot, I waste time on it and feel stupid and depressed. Feeling smart 1% of the time and stupid 99% of the time
Yeah guess what, that same thing gets at me ever since I started programming. I still like doing it, but that aspect is truly increasingly an issue in the activity since late 20s / early 30s now. How enjoyable you spend big chunks of your lifetime does matter after all, and you increasingly get that horrible nagging "time's flying faster every day now, I'm running out of a fixed resource one compiler error at a day" feeling..
Re: Why you would want to program at fifty (or any other age)
#36I'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…
42 here, checking in, also been recently able to support myself quite well with the good ol' C chops, for some reason its just still quite a good way to get things done, even in the floaty-boaty layers of the FOSS/newlang bleeding edge hegemony/cultural-psychosis, underneath a lot of it, if not nearly all, is still some C-lib being faithfully hammered on.
Love that.
Re: Why you would want to program at fifty (or any other age)
#37Earlier 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…
""Am I missing something about it? Is it just more familiarity with the older language that makes it more comfortable?""
Yes, I would say - you did miss something. C++ does come with the STL, and "saves you" from having to bring-your-own/be responsible for a package of well-tested basics, it is true.
But, then again, if you have been coding C long enough, probably there is a lot of code you've got in your suite that represents powers beyond the STL. I've got a small hashlib/assoc-array header or two which, fundamentally, has been all I've needed to write performant code on whatever subject my applications are addressing.
I agree that there should be a 'layer' by which programmers are protected from systems-level thinking, but then again I think in this day and age, it is a good thing to delete cruft, effective C management (i.e. you know your libs because you also wrote them, and so on..) allows for very nicely maintainable code. Even in this day and age of "point phone at t-shirt to install web 2.x.x" style deployment, I am glad to have good C chops. Still.