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The Aging Programmer [video]

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Re: The Aging Programmer [video]

#41

Post by PaulHoule »

bityard wrote: post #33
PaulHoule wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See also https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK539720/ McKenzie's ideas helped me greatly with back pain but did not help with my neck pain I got later. After some years I discovered I had trouble in my jaw which caused referred pain to my neck and shoulders. My dentist recommended a bite guard for my tooth grinding, at which point the pain quickly localized in my jaw and slowly got better -- maybe it hurts a bit one…

Most people should be doing at least some baseline level of both strength training AND cardio. Working around whatever injuries or anatomical issues they have. There's nothing wrong with treadmills.

Personally I have a history of patello-femoral problems, running is not the best exercise for me so if I am doing cardio I prefer the elliptical, AMT, ergometer, anything else. If I do want to walk I am going to do it in the woods around me.

I agree there's a fad today that trainers are more into weights than cardio. (Personally I love things like circuit training that are hybrids.)

I had a time period when I was under extreme stress and doing two hours a cardio, sometimes walking 12 miles a day, etc. It helped me make endless cold calls and deal with a huge amount of uncertainty.

I fainted when I was in an exercise class, working extra hard because I had a crush on the instructor, on an extremely hot day in a high humidity building after eating too much. I saw a number of doctors as a result including a cardiologist and spent a month wearing a portable EKG. I was told I had "Athlete's Heart" with visible changes on my sonogram and an abnormally low resting heart rate (so did my grandfather who died of mesothelioma around age 75 and so did President G. W. Bush who is still kicking at 78)

The Holter monitor caught about 10 bad heartbeats in the last 30 minutes of the study so I got a diagnosis of Atrial Fibrillation which I'm now being treated for. (Oddly a hare-brained scheme of mine had fallen apart right at that time which was a major stress source) My doc told me it was fine for me to do 1 hour of cardio a day but not more.

Re: The Aging Programmer [video]

#42

Post by OJFord »

cjbgkagh wrote: post #13
ddellacosta wrote: post #8

I appreciated this. Lots of solid advice and positive and pragmatic thinking here about aging in the context of being a programmer, and more generally too. I'll take this opportunity to make a related pitch regarding back pain in particular, which can become more of a problem if you are sedentary as so many programmers are: if you have chronic back issues you owe it to yourself to at least check out Stuart McGill's B…

Programmers are much more likely than the general population to have hyper-mobility. I am so hypermobile that none of the traditional ergonomics techniques, including physical therapy, work well enough and I have resorted to using a reclining chair. The reclining chair has worked out great and I really wish I had tried it much sooner. I had not considered it earlier because all of the advice I had received was that i…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypermobility_(joints)

I think everyone doubting, saying counter-intuitive etc. is making a spot interpretation of what the term means ('very active sporty person' or something).

Re: The Aging Programmer [video]

#43

Post by tonymet »

The host is clearly in poor physical condition and many of their concerns are due to lack of proper nutrition , exercise and prescription meds abuse. They appear 15 years older than they should be. Their advice is primarily reactive, and the trivial proactive advice (exercise more) is delivered almost ironically.

Take care of yourself now. Drop the weight, get generous activity, get off the meds and you will feel loads better.

Re: The Aging Programmer [video]

#44

Post by volkl48 »

mikestew wrote: post #21
cjbgkagh wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Programmers are much more likely than the general population to have hyper-mobility. I am so hypermobile that none of the traditional ergonomics techniques, including physical therapy, work well enough and I have resorted to using a reclining chair. The reclining chair has worked out great and I really wish I had tried it much sooner. I had not considered it earlier because all of the advice I had received was that i…

Programmers are much more likely than the general population to have hyper-mobility Boy, that one comes with a whole lot of [citation needed] .

Not really an expert in the topic, and so I can't comment much on the mechanisms why, but AFAIK there's a decent body of evidence that hypermobility is significantly more common in the ADHD + Autism populations than the general public....and I don't think there's much debate that those populations are more likely to be programmers than the general public.

Haven't reviewed in depth, but here's an example to support that claim that looks reasonably credible from a quick review - for some types of hypermobility at least, 5x more likely for Adult ADHD, we're not necessarily talking some kind of small/statistical noise level difference: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34560594/

Re: The Aging Programmer [video]

#45

Post by cloverich »

One thing I've struggled with, that is very personality dependent, is being assertive around younger, sharper programmers. It can be an odd dynamic, where I may work with people smarter and faster but less experienced than myself. It can become difficult depending on the dynamics to push for the best choices in architecture, libraries, etc, when it is something they don't want to do, if you are not explicitly their senior. More naturally confident and assertive programmers will not have this issue. This is particularly problematic when pushing for restraint.

For example, choosing a more well supported and stable UI library for an internal tool, vs using one with e.g. more components or more customization. Its hard to sell that there's no money in fancy internal tools, and a limited set of UI that works well and requires little or no support and even less cognitive load, and just working with those constraints, can result in a net benefit long term. Especially when someone that is sharp and fast can bang out working solutions very quickly. Then three years on the tool is only growing, and the complexity is high, re-usability is low, each page is its own snowflake, and someone has to maintain it. The cost suddenly becomes that of an FTE, for a tool that's only occasionally used, which is astronomically cost ineffective. I told you so is worse than worthless because it solves nothing and only burns bridges. You just deal with the outcome and know you should have pushed harder, perhaps even put your job on the line. Tough to do for trivial matters. I think people that excel as aging programmers figure out how to deal with this well, whether through being more assertive, more convincing, more officially senior, or perhaps even more selective about the situations they get themselves into.

I guess what's not surprising is that you can work in this career so long, continually on "the same stuff", and yet the patterns and opportunities can provide interesting new problems to solve, not always the ones you thought needed solving.

Re: The Aging Programmer [video]

#46

Post by Kokouane »

danbmil wrote: post #38

My peak programming skills are close to what they were 30 years ago, but I cannot sustain that level of concentration for long periods as I once could. I feel like a pinch hitter: I can do a couple innings at a high level of performance, but I can't keep that level up as long as I used to. OTOH I think I have better judgement when it comes to deep, complex questions of long-term architecture choices. My "meta-program…

> but I cannot sustain that level of concentration for long periods as I once could.

This scares me. I'm younger and thus, I feel like social media and short form content has had so much impact on my ability to focus that it already feels bad where it is right now. Never thought this might be the peak of my concentration power though.

Re: The Aging Programmer [video]

#47

Post by z0r »

ddellacosta wrote: post #8

I appreciated this. Lots of solid advice and positive and pragmatic thinking here about aging in the context of being a programmer, and more generally too. I'll take this opportunity to make a related pitch regarding back pain in particular, which can become more of a problem if you are sedentary as so many programmers are: if you have chronic back issues you owe it to yourself to at least check out Stuart McGill's B…

Endorsing Back Mechanic as a great book for fixing back issues, at least for my own experience. Referenced a copy after I first threw out my back. Took months of regular McGill exercises to get back to normal (could barely even walk for a week). It was extremely comforting to know that my back pain problems were fixable, and regressions could be solved with more careful adherence to the exercise regime. I am as active as I have ever been 7 years later, and now I understand the warning signs when I have been mistreating my back.

Edit: For the past few years I've also been sitting in a https://qor360.com/ chair when I'm working. I've found I've had fewer warning niggles of incipient back pain during the periods where I regularly sit in this kind of active chair. I could only tolerate it for brief periods at first but the adjustment period was worth working through.

Re: The Aging Programmer [video]

#48

Post by PaulHoule »

y-c-o-m-b wrote: post #35
PaulHoule wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See also https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK539720/ McKenzie's ideas helped me greatly with back pain but did not help with my neck pain I got later. After some years I discovered I had trouble in my jaw which caused referred pain to my neck and shoulders. My dentist recommended a bite guard for my tooth grinding, at which point the pain quickly localized in my jaw and slowly got better -- maybe it hurts a bit one…

PSA: Be careful about doing McKenzie technique exercises! It made it worse for me because the physical therapist didn't do a good enough analysis! I encourage a thorough assessment that includes an MRI review of your spine first. The link posted above mentions it as well > Although most patients favor spinal extension, there are, however, patients who favor spinal flexion instead. For these types of patients, the rep…

Unfortunately the results you get from doing that are pretty variable.

Not like you shouldn't go see a doc and get imaging and do all that (you should!) but every time I've gotten imaging done I've heard "you've got degeneration which is typical for somebody your age" -- my son just got an MRI for a work injury (paid for by Workman's Comp) and got told the same thing. Often your doc gives you an order to a PT and what sort of therapy you get from a PT is complete random and not evidence based.

Imaging might turn up a specific cause (maybe a tumour) but it is usually inconclusive. Studies tend to show low correlation between degeneration seen and back pain and my doc was clear it was the same when I was having serious pain in my knee.

You're right that centralization vs peripheralization is an important sign.

Re: The Aging Programmer [video]

#49

Post by wonger_ »

Kokouane wrote: post #46
danbmil wrote: post #38

My peak programming skills are close to what they were 30 years ago, but I cannot sustain that level of concentration for long periods as I once could. I feel like a pinch hitter: I can do a couple innings at a high level of performance, but I can't keep that level up as long as I used to. OTOH I think I have better judgement when it comes to deep, complex questions of long-term architecture choices. My "meta-program…

> but I cannot sustain that level of concentration for long periods as I once could. This scares me. I'm younger and thus, I feel like social media and short form content has had so much impact on my ability to focus that it already feels bad where it is right now. Never thought this might be the peak of my concentration power though.

I've felt the same. I started reading books again though, and I felt a small improvement in my ability to concentrate. Digital detoxing helps too.

Re: The Aging Programmer [video]

#50

Post by seanw444 »

lupire wrote: post #39
cjbgkagh wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I noticed it in general observationally and later found a generic explanation for it. I used to do behavioral analytics and noticed that programmers tend to have a distinct clustering of behaviors. I’m pretty sure it’s the TNXB gene, it’s been overlooked because it’s traditionally hard to sequence but modern sequencing 30x or long reads can find SNPs here. A colleague who has the same rare set of behaviors and intere…

These conditions (hypermobilty, transgenderism, programming) are all part of the autism cluster.

Programmers might be one of the most autistic cliques I've seen, so this checks out. That's both a good and bad thing.
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