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Programmers: Before you turn 40, get a plan B (2009)

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Re: Programmers: Before you turn 40, get a plan B (2009)

#351

Post by dragonwriter »

Merrill wrote: post #349

Suppose that it is true that it takes 10,000 hours to become expert at software development, just like for other arts and skills. Then, if the half life of IT is 10 years, you have to accumulate 5,000 hours of new learning every 10 years. Consequently, you have to devote about 10 hours/week to learning new stuff in order to keep current. If you are lucky in managing your career much of this can be done on the job. Ot…

> Suppose that it is true that it takes 10,000 hours to become expert at software development, just like for other arts and skills.

The 10,000 hour rule is just something Gladwell made up on the back of a study which found that people at a certain level in certain fields (classical violin and classical piano) averaged that much experience (EDIT: actually, deliberate practice), while people at lower levels averaged less. It isn't a threshold.

Re: Programmers: Before you turn 40, get a plan B (2009)

#352

Post by saltcured »

pmiller2 wrote: post #266
saltcured wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is the basis of the assumption of 40 as a boundary as well, isn't it? I don't think most people really believe there is some biological limit of 40 for programming, but more an apparent shelf-life for your run of the mill programming career. This all strikes me as a specific case of the more general character of any ~20 year or "generational" endeavor. You experience phases of intellectual and social stimulation…

You don’t seem to understand how ageism works. The limit is “you look old,” whether that’s in person, or because you have 20 years of work experience on your resume. Think “overqualified,” or “not a culture fit.” It isn’t rational like you seem to think. If I were 40 and thought I could have a 15 year career in software, I wouldn’t be worried, either.

You might be right. I am ~45 years old and have been doing R&D programming for about ~25 years. I have known strong performers of all ages, and seen attrition happen at all ages as well.

I did go through some FANG type interviewing about 10 years ago, ending without an offer. I don't think they rejected me for being ~35, but I imagine they may have decided there wasn't a "cultural fit". There was something a little Lord of the Flies about the experience, which I might have grossly summarized at the time as having been interviewed by a bunch of little kids. I didn't resent this, so much as think I had dodged a bullet.

Re: Programmers: Before you turn 40, get a plan B (2009)

#353

Post by rootusrootus »

dragonwriter wrote: post #351
Merrill wrote: post #349

Suppose that it is true that it takes 10,000 hours to become expert at software development, just like for other arts and skills. Then, if the half life of IT is 10 years, you have to accumulate 5,000 hours of new learning every 10 years. Consequently, you have to devote about 10 hours/week to learning new stuff in order to keep current. If you are lucky in managing your career much of this can be done on the job. Ot…

> Suppose that it is true that it takes 10,000 hours to become expert at software development, just like for other arts and skills. The 10,000 hour rule is just something Gladwell made up on the back of a study which found that people at a certain level in certain fields (classical violin and classical piano) averaged that much experience (EDIT: actually, deliberate practice), while people at lower levels averaged le…

Also, it isn't just 10000 hours of experience, it's 10000 hours of deliberate practice.

Re: Programmers: Before you turn 40, get a plan B (2009)

#354

Post by mattlondon »

celticmusic wrote: post #199
pmiller2 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have a problem with standups. I actually like having ticket tracking systems (how else are you supposed to know what is high priority to work on?). But, open offices are objectively terrible. Research shows it, people here complain about it all the time, and yet companies keep building them. Where I'm at, the floor is divided in such a way that teams sitting together can sometimes have their own little "bull…

I hate standups with a fucking passion. All a standup to me is an interruption 30-45 minutes into the day which causes me to lose an hour or more of time every single day. I basically just fart around with things that don't need much focus until the standup happens. The worst part is that I suggested instead of standups we just send what we we would have said in the standup via slack. That lasted 3 days. The reason n…

if your standup is taking 30-45 minutes you are doing it wrong.

All you need is: What you did yesterday, what you are doing today, and what you are stuck on/need someone else's time with.

Some clarifying questions/interruptions from others in the stand-up are fine ("yesterday I got stuck on foo and I-" "Was it foo-bar, or foo-quux?" "Quux" "Oh did you try the flibble button?" "Why would I need to do that?" "Well since last month's release if you dont use the flibble button..." etc), but if they go on for more than 30 seconds they need to be shut down and done outside of the standup.

My team has up to 20-25 people in a standup and we're usualy done well inside of 15 minutes.

Other tips are scheduling them before a set time (e.g. before the canteen opens so if you over-run you are late to lunch), or doing them early in the day so they don't interrupt the daily grind too much -> get in at 8:30, get your coffee, 20 minutes email triage -> 10 min standup, and its 9am and you've got the whole rest of the day to do

Re: Programmers: Before you turn 40, get a plan B (2009)

#355

Post by atq2119 »

blub wrote: post #217
randrews wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would add code reviews to that. The advent of those was when it really stopped being fun for me, because it's really hard to keep that from turning into "your boss nitpicking every line you write."

Code review is one of those things where the culture around reviewing and the experience of the reviewers makes all the difference. A code review where the boss reviews code is pathological. When experienced peers do the review it can be brilliant. In fact I would only trust a team of very competent seniors not to need code review. Even then, getting another opinion on your code can be worth it.

Everybody needs code review.

Though the way I scan the code during review does change by how much I know and respect the author on a technical level.

That correlates with but is not identical to their formal seniority.

Re: Programmers: Before you turn 40, get a plan B (2009)

#356

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

godelski wrote: post #282
asdfman123 wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, you hear all these horror stories about how developers have a "shelf life." In the meantime, though, every single older developer I've met has been extremely knowledgeable and frankly much better at the craft than myself. Look at any hobby -- say, guitar playing. The difference between someone who's been doing it for 4 years and someone who's been doing it 20 years is ridiculous. They're so much better. I feel…

The guitar playing is a good analogy here. Say you've played classical for years and dabbled in rock and some jazz. Like any musician you've played around a little but probably focus on one style. You're best friend asks you to play flemanco for them at their wedding. Sure, you won't be as good as someone that's played flemanco all their life. But if flemanco was invented 5 years ago you're sure going to pick it up f…

>No matter the language you use, there are common patterns. Someone who has been programming for years generally picks up a new language quickly (because of this). So should a programmer with 30 years of experience in C and 1 year in rust be paid more than the programmer with 5 years of rust experience? Absolutely. Those 30 years they were learning to program, to debug, to solve problems. The skills translate.

Tell this to HR/recruiting departments.

I'm a highly experienced C developer with some python and JavaScript experience on the side yet can't get any jobs on those as HR/recruiters will just filter my resume out every time due to "insufficient python/JS experience".

HR has no idea how programming skills and experience translate across languages, they're just trained to filter out people based on buzzwords.

On the other side, everybody is looking for people already versed in the languages they need right NOW and aren't gonna take the chance on someone proficient in other languages hoping they'll master the new ones soon enough. Too risky for business.

Re: Programmers: Before you turn 40, get a plan B (2009)

#357

Post by pmiller2 »

saltcured wrote: post #352
pmiller2 wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don’t seem to understand how ageism works. The limit is “you look old,” whether that’s in person, or because you have 20 years of work experience on your resume. Think “overqualified,” or “not a culture fit.” It isn’t rational like you seem to think. If I were 40 and thought I could have a 15 year career in software, I wouldn’t be worried, either.

You might be right. I am ~45 years old and have been doing R&D programming for about ~25 years. I have known strong performers of all ages, and seen attrition happen at all ages as well. I did go through some FANG type interviewing about 10 years ago, ending without an offer. I don't think they rejected me for being ~35, but I imagine they may have decided there wasn't a "cultural fit". There was something a little L…

> There was something a little Lord of the Flies about the experience, which I might have grossly summarized at the time as having been interviewed by a bunch of little kids. I didn't resent this, so much as think I had dodged a bullet.

I recently had a similar experience at Cruise Automation. Of my 4 interviewers, none had been with the company more than a year, and at least two looked like they were in their 20s. The younger interviewers were the ones doing "coding" interviews, rather than system design, and their questions were straight up pulled from leetcode.com.

Apparently, I "struggled" in one interview, because I was only able to answer one question and part of the second one. What I actually struggled with was trying to prove that the algorithm I was using was optimal, which seemed important at the time.

C'est la vie. I later heard from some fairly reliable sources that the place was kind of a shit show, so I also feel like I dodged a bullet or two there.

Re: Programmers: Before you turn 40, get a plan B (2009)

#358

Post by elgatoblanco »

blackflame7000 wrote: post #281
spraak wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> grinding away at a FANG I've started to propose we s/FANG/Big N/g "FANG" leaves off other obvious big companies, e.g. Uber, and it wouldn't scale to keep trying to add them to the acronym. Here N is used like when one talks about a list "N items long"

Does it seem odd to exclude Microsoft from FAANG when it's the largest?

You are right! I propose we use the acronym FAGMAN from now on.

Re: Programmers: Before you turn 40, get a plan B (2009)

#360

Post by inetknght »

sbov wrote: post #237
asdfman123 wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, you hear all these horror stories about how developers have a "shelf life." In the meantime, though, every single older developer I've met has been extremely knowledgeable and frankly much better at the craft than myself. Look at any hobby -- say, guitar playing. The difference between someone who's been doing it for 4 years and someone who's been doing it 20 years is ridiculous. They're so much better. I feel…

Also, most languages are not sinking ships. Certain uses of them are of course. But even languages this site hates, such as C, C++, C#, and Java have very long lives ahead of them for certain uses. Obviously C++ vs Rails... well, you're going to be out of a job. But if you were using C++ for the sorts of things you would have used Rails in 2009 you were already a decade or so behind the curve.

I doubt it. C++ has come a long way in the past decade and still has a lot of momentum.

As for rails? Admittedly I'm in an anti-ruby bubble... but the Ruby developers I do know definitely don't use Rails anymore. Ruby seems to have matured into basically just Chef/Vagrant in my bubble and any Rails apps are being deprecated in favor of the bubble-biased languages.

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