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The Developer's Dystopian Future

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Re: The Developer's Dystopian Future

#31

Post by gordaco »

personZ wrote: post #11

Honest, legitimate post that I very much enjoyed. However I do think posts like this feed in ageism. I say this because it posits that the change is that the author is older and has more things to do, therefore they've fallen out with technology. The take-away invariably being that people who are older and have more things to do have fallen out with technology, whereas the young are still with it, whatever it is. Let…

I used to have that passion, when I was young (I'm 29 now, so not very young for the tech world, although not old either). And to be honest, it was the 40+ work week what killed it. I never liked specialization, so to me it makes a lot of sense that, if you're already investing that much time in technology, you may spend the rest of the week doing a different thing. I'm getting a new degree (in principle, I don't plan to make a career change, I just want to do something different with my evenings). And this summer I'm learning a bit of Finnish on my own, because why not. Obviously, it's not like I ran out of curiosity, but rather, that I prefer to direct it to several different things than focusing on a single one.

If I devoted my free time to technology, I would be doing so just not to become obsolete, not out of genuine interest, and that would be too frustrating. I actually have some tech interests (Scala, Hadoop, any kind of complex algorithm, etc), but when I get home, there is so much I'd rather do, that I don't program at home any more, except on rare occasions.

There is a lot of pressure to spend all your waking time on technology and things related to your work or your career (I'd say this is part of the so-called "Californian ideology", maybe I'm wrong). But, in actuality, not that much people is so obsessed with learning the same area, and the competition to not get behind is mostly illusory (ageism is another different problem; and no amount of knowledge will free you from it). So my advice here is that, if you don't feel like devoting your life to a single thing, forget about your job the very moment you close your office's door, and enjoy any other of the million things life has to offer. And of course, if you are really that passionate, keep learning new programming languages or techniques on your free time (just be careful about burnout).

Final note: the most tech-passionate guy on my job is one of the oldest (36). It's not a matter of losing it over time, it's a simple matter of people's preferences (and in some cases evolution over time).

Re: The Developer's Dystopian Future

#32

Post by gfodor »

nostromo wrote: post #21
personZ wrote: post #11

Honest, legitimate post that I very much enjoyed. However I do think posts like this feed in ageism. I say this because it posits that the change is that the author is older and has more things to do, therefore they've fallen out with technology. The take-away invariably being that people who are older and have more things to do have fallen out with technology, whereas the young are still with it, whatever it is. Let…

Yes. Somehow "I am less motivated to work hard and learn new things in my 40s" turns into "Everyone is less motivated to work hard and learn new things in their 40s." The author sounds a bit bored. His mind is telling him, "After 15 years of LAMP development, I'm bored, let's do something different!" What should he do? Maybe he should take some time off, learn something new and exciting, or maybe move to the countrys…

If you're sick of building CRUD web applications, it's probably a good idea to remind yourself that there are an infinite number of other things you can create with computers.

Re: The Developer's Dystopian Future

#33

Post by enjalot »

The honesty is relatable, the fear is real. As someone who is working with/on some of the newfangled technologies it's as if my coworkers are constantly trying to put me out of touch!

I've seen a bunch of new and sweet technologies come out in the last 3 years that I've been doing web development. The thing that comforts me is that what I haven't seen is a diminished number of problems that need solving. In fact it's the opposite, the more things tech enables, the more problems people seem to have!

If you change your mindset from "what technologies do I need to know" to "what are the problems I can solve with technology" everything changes. There are thousands of organizations getting by on excel spreadsheets to model and manage billions of dollars. Do you need to know responsive-Angular-distributed-Go to tailor some software that solves real problems? no. Do you need it to be cool on HN? maybe.

Re: The Developer's Dystopian Future

#34

Post by flexd »

personZ wrote: post #11

Honest, legitimate post that I very much enjoyed. However I do think posts like this feed in ageism. I say this because it posits that the change is that the author is older and has more things to do, therefore they've fallen out with technology. The take-away invariably being that people who are older and have more things to do have fallen out with technology, whereas the young are still with it, whatever it is. Let…

I agree completely, you sound exactly like the kind of person I am!

I just finished my computer engineering bachelors degree a month ago, I am 26 years old. From all the people I know at school, only a small handful of them has ever done any kind of coding or any thing outside of the school curriculum (more than just reading a tutorial one night).

That is, for me at least, a frightening thought. You want to work has a developer but you do not spend any time outside work to learn?

Some of us are curious and try things out. I believe those that do are (mostly) the people that can be good developers. A situation that was particularly curious to me was when we had our first Programming 101 (Java) class the semester before Christmas, and then when the second class from around mid-February. In between that time, a huge amount of the class did not look at any Java, or do anything, or even try it out. So unsurprisingly, barely anyone remembered anything. There was just a complete lack of interest, and I can't figure out why they would choose this career path if they did not enjoy it and I do not understand how those people managed to pass classes, or how they are supposed to do good work later.

I have had a growing interest in computers since I was a child, and I think I have been coding since I was around 12-13 years old. During my time at university I have attempted to get people more interested in coding by suggesting they figure out some problem they want to solve, and then spend some time making something. I think I managed to get only a few of them to try anything, while the rest were questioning why they would want to do anything like that... I know quite a few of them have gotten jobs directly out of school, but I have no idea how.

Edit:

I do understand that not everyone has time to nerd out all the time, especially when you get older and have a family. I also like to relax and recharge, so I try to keep busy doing other things like exercising. Sometimes I just get so sick of work, school and everything that I can't seem to write any code at home for personal projects. It is nice to be able to burn of that unspent energy mountain biking for example. And sometimes that just seems to shake loose a solution to a problem I have been having or give me inspiration to create something new.

Re: The Developer's Dystopian Future

#35

Post by gfodor »

bignaj wrote: post #20
PaulHoule wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Devops is an attitude more than a particular practice. So far as AWS, I'm an AWS maniac and I would say it is a bit complicated. You have a huge number of choices and if you pick the wrong ones you will pay in more ways then one. I've gotten to the top of the learning curve fortunately because I read AWS docs over and over when I work out at the gym, but I've got little interest in working with other cloud platforms…

>because I read AWS docs over and over when I work out at the gym Now that's... dedication. How does the "working out" part go though? There is no way I could see myself reading AWS docs repeatedly while lifting, it actually sounds kindof dangerous. Edit: you and I have the same alma mater and have probably worked out in the same gym! Go Big Red.

ah yes, teagle hall IIRC. i don't recall anyone browsing documentation in the squat rack (on the admittedly rare occasion I went to the gym in college), but that was more than a decade ago so maybe this is part of the 'brogrammer' thing :)

Re: The Developer's Dystopian Future

#36

Post by personZ »

nostromo wrote: post #21
personZ wrote: post #11

Honest, legitimate post that I very much enjoyed. However I do think posts like this feed in ageism. I say this because it posits that the change is that the author is older and has more things to do, therefore they've fallen out with technology. The take-away invariably being that people who are older and have more things to do have fallen out with technology, whereas the young are still with it, whatever it is. Let…

Yes. Somehow "I am less motivated to work hard and learn new things in my 40s" turns into "Everyone is less motivated to work hard and learn new things in their 40s." The author sounds a bit bored. His mind is telling him, "After 15 years of LAMP development, I'm bored, let's do something different!" What should he do? Maybe he should take some time off, learn something new and exciting, or maybe move to the countrys…

Yes. Somehow "I am less motivated to work hard and learn new things in my 40s" turns into "Everyone is less motivated to work hard and learn new things in their 40s."

Yes, it very much is worded exactly like that. If you describe a starting state, and then a change of environment or inputs (getting older, which happens to all of us), and then hold the resulting state as the consequences of that change, you are generalizing, intentional or not. It is simply unavoidable. Sarcasm to this obvious reality isn't helpful.

To put it another way -- if a technology ignorant HR recruiter read that piece, they would absolutely think "older, established people are less valuable hires" than "this individual is a less valuable hire".

This, of course, could be the cycle turning in on itself, in much the same way that some minorities equate their condition to being a consequence of being a minority, rather than individual, more unique traits.

Re: The Developer's Dystopian Future

#37

Post by mtct »

thegeomaster wrote: post #25

I'm not even legally an adult, and I feel like things are moving too fast for me. At 17 years. I guess I shouldn't feel like that, but I can't help it. I started with VB6 as a kid, 6 years ago. I moved onto C++, then learned about 3D graphics and game engines, then learned HTML, CSS, JavaScript, gotten into web development, learned Photoshop, some basic design, working with Linux, PHP, a little of C#. Recently tinker…

Stop follow hacker news and you will rapidly recover from this illness.

Source: Me, someone that see COBOL all day and still live happily after that.

Re: The Developer's Dystopian Future

#38

Post by gordaco »

thegeomaster wrote: post #25

I'm not even legally an adult, and I feel like things are moving too fast for me. At 17 years. I guess I shouldn't feel like that, but I can't help it. I started with VB6 as a kid, 6 years ago. I moved onto C++, then learned about 3D graphics and game engines, then learned HTML, CSS, JavaScript, gotten into web development, learned Photoshop, some basic design, working with Linux, PHP, a little of C#. Recently tinker…

Calm down! Nobody in the industry knows everything about everything :). It's OK that you feel a little overwhelmed, because there is so much to learn. At your age, you can take your time, learn a little of everything, discover what is it that you like the most, and focus on it. And I'm referring to domains, not languages or techniques: if you're into web backends, there is not that much difference between, say, Python and Ruby, even if knowing both will make you appreciate the advantages and shortcomings of each one.

In the end, if you work steadily and know where to apply for a job, getting it is easier than it sounds (nobody's days have more than 24 hours, and if you started that early, chances are that you're quite better than your age's average). Just be aware that, with all that many languages, frameworks, etc. there will always be people (maybe even younger than you) that know more than you about some of them.

Re: The Developer's Dystopian Future

#39

Post by dools »

I think the place you can deliver the most value is strategy and leadership. There is a tremendous dearth of good communicators in this space.

I barely code anymore - the labour overseas is so cheap I can't justify spending 8 hours trying to figure out some bug ... But I've found joy in managing teams and coming up with plans and strategies and helping clients get results and things like that.

In fact it's far more enjoyable: when I was doing all the work the limit on how many of my ideas could come to fruition was my own time. Now I am able to see more of my plans and ideas come to life more quickly and that's the part that I always really enjoyed.

I've let go of trying to keep up with specific technological details... They all sort of fade into insignificance and you realise that it's all sort of the same stuff; different tactics but the same strategies. Old folks win by being better at strategy.

That's how it works in a lot of fields where the energy of youth is an advantage. I don't think tech and/or business is any different.

Re: The Developer's Dystopian Future

#40

Post by andy_boot »

thegeomaster wrote: post #25

I'm not even legally an adult, and I feel like things are moving too fast for me. At 17 years. I guess I shouldn't feel like that, but I can't help it. I started with VB6 as a kid, 6 years ago. I moved onto C++, then learned about 3D graphics and game engines, then learned HTML, CSS, JavaScript, gotten into web development, learned Photoshop, some basic design, working with Linux, PHP, a little of C#. Recently tinker…

There will always be more frameworks, languages and technologies to learn. Don't freak out. It is impossible to keep up with all of them just accept that you can never know everything.

I'd recommend a 'wide and deep' strategy, try and get an overview of as much as you can but specialize in a couple.

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