this thread makes me feel a bit better about getting old.
Ask HN: Am I the longest-serving programmer – 57 years and counting?
341–350 of 555 posts
Re: Ask HN: Am I the longest-serving programmer – 57 years and counting?
#342I've been doing this for 10 years, but as a 10x ninja I clearly have racked up 100 man-years of shitting out c.
Jokes aside, i wish I worked with guys who have so much experience. I'm sure it would be humbling.
Re: Ask HN: Am I the longest-serving programmer – 57 years and counting?
#343Thank you, this is a wonderful post! Please share more of your story. (Write a book, please). I would love to hear answers to the following: 1. What ideas proved useful throughout your career, and what ideas did you change your mind about? 2. What are your hobbies? Do you still program in your spare time - if so, what? Or do you find other outlets? 3. What went into the decision to go back to school? Did you get the…
That's a lot of questions, but let me take a couple. I got my Master's degrees in the early 1970's, when we used something called a "slide rule". In 1990 I went back to school to update my skills and expand my knowledge into artificial intelligence, which I had become enamored with. Unfortunately, I didn't finish my PhD (big mistake!) because in 1995 I jumped on an opportunity to join a company that had this amazing…
Why do you regret not finishing your PhD? I’ve gotten mixed reviews on if the effort was worth it for those I know who did it.
Re: Ask HN: Am I the longest-serving programmer – 57 years and counting?
#344Earlier quoted context omitted.
Strong/weak and dynamic/static. JS is dynamic, but variables will always have a type, which is memory safe - which makes types strong.
I’ve heard another definition of strong, which is that the compiler will make more guarantees, and in those cases the terminology was: * safe/unsafe * strong/weak * static/dynamic Note that while safe/unsafe is basically all-or-nothing, strong/weak and static/dynamic are more of a spectrum, so JavaScript would be safe, weaker, and more dynamic than other languages. Typescript makes JS stronger when authoring code.
Also sound/unsound
Re: Ask HN: Am I the longest-serving programmer – 57 years and counting?
#345Earlier quoted context omitted.
The "but they said this" posts add nothing. The thread is unchanged if they are removed. So I advise, don't post them. In addition that unnecessary post asserted personal things not in evidence, giving the most uncharitable interpretation which is actually in direct violation of this site's standards and practices.
It does add something. If there is a direct question, and someone is answering it incorrectly it should be valid to tell them they misunderstood. Also calling someone a non programmer is not mean.
Nope. Not a charitable interpretation; not necessary by any means to 'correct' what is obviously an anecdotal comment in the same vein as the OP. Not even correct to call the commenter a non-programmer - assuming things not in evidence.
A question like "But have you been continuously employed as a programmer?" could be reasonable and not mean-spirited.
Re: Ask HN: Am I the longest-serving programmer – 57 years and counting?
#346Earlier quoted context omitted.
I thought weak/strong typing is more about how explicit/implicit type conversion is. In PHP and JS it's almost always implicit and they don't warn you for mixing most types, whereas e.g. Python will complain. That's one thing I don't enjoy with PHP/JS. A lot of certainty goes out of the window with it.
Everyone likes different things. '1'+1=2 prevents a lot of errors. The languages tries to help you along compared to an harsh error. Maybe you want a harsh error.. halting everything until you declare a new variable with the same type and have to go through a manual conversion. For me let the language handle that. If you are tdding anything unexpected will be caught anyhow if you are worried how things convert. It's…
Implicit string to number conversion is more like C in terms of memory management, in the sense that it's a huge footgun that you will definitely shoot yourself with. I have never seen it prevent errors, only make them worse by hiding them from QA so they can reach production and ruin your weekend.
Re: Ask HN: Am I the longest-serving programmer – 57 years and counting?
#347Earlier quoted context omitted.
PHP and Javascript both improved significantly, but both still have horrible legacy baggage that can't be rid of, namely weak typing (not dynamic, where a variable can hold any type, but weak, where "1"+2=3). For me, that makes programming in either language like running in a minefield. And still, I write Javascript daily, because myeusers don't care about weak typing :-)
Javascript is a lot saner than that. The result is "12". (I'm ok with automatic casting so long as it's an embedding. Every number has a reasonable string representation, but not vice versa. Wanting explicit casts like in Python is defensible, though.)
Huh, what do you know.
Still, this is unforgivable in my book:
[] + {} == "[object Object]"
{} + [] == 0Re: Ask HN: Am I the longest-serving programmer – 57 years and counting?
#348Earlier quoted context omitted.
PHP and Javascript both improved significantly, but both still have horrible legacy baggage that can't be rid of, namely weak typing (not dynamic, where a variable can hold any type, but weak, where "1"+2=3). For me, that makes programming in either language like running in a minefield. And still, I write Javascript daily, because myeusers don't care about weak typing :-)
If you really care so much, why not simply embrace TypeScript?
Perhaps one day I will. When I last started a big JS project it wasn't mature enough to build a company around. This does seem to be changing.
Re: Ask HN: Am I the longest-serving programmer – 57 years and counting?
#349Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why are you not yet retired? I can think of few strong reasons, but I would love to hear from you. (I started programming at 8, I’m 41 and I have no plans of stopping )
It’s like in Shawshank. First you can’t stand the bars, then you get used to them, then you can’t live without them. After 50+ years of structured work people forget how to be in charge of themselves.
I'm sure he would be retired if he wanted to
Re: Ask HN: Am I the longest-serving programmer – 57 years and counting?
#350Earlier quoted context omitted.
He wanted to share similar experience with the caveats up front. Concept of free country, free world, free internet :) I had similar reconnaissance but now I hesitate to share. But challenge accepted, worst case is downvotes :) 4 years back, maybe 5 I used to think this is how old age was (would not mention my age but it is younger than the main OP), body slowly unable to do what is used to be able to do. Then after…
> Then after 2 stents and change in lifestyle, I find I can do same or more than what I could do 5 years back, maybe a decade back. What kind of change in lifestyle made such a positive difference for you?
It varies from person to person, but for me: cut down/eliminate sugar (my soda consumption is now 1-2/year whereas earlier it would be every day, multiple sometimes), cut down/eliminate lattes, eat only as per hunger, diet is more of a whole foods plant based but I take eggs regularly and meat once a week while shunning all packaged/frozen food. Still lot more veggies than carbs. And exercise, it is not an option, you do not need to binge on it but you can not lose a month just being a sloth. You need to move. I could always walk but after stents it took me a month to go from initial 0.8 miles attempt to 1.0 miles but keep working on it slowly and steadily never adding on a massive risk. Last year I did my first (and so far only) 10K which I could not have dreamed of a decade back, and touch wood, the recovery times after these are fantastic : not so when I did the first 5K.
The bad side effects: focus. There are times when you are in the zone and you want to finish some piece of work, and the watch tells you to get up because it is 50 minutes after the hour. 2 very conflicting needs: moving for health vs sit and focus. If I was not overthinking of health, I would rather focus and get the job done in one sitting.