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The Aging Programmer [video]

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Re: The Aging Programmer [video]

#51

Post by tialaramex »

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…

“A superior pilot uses his superior judgment to avoid situations which require the use of his superior skill.” Frank Borman

Re: The Aging Programmer [video]

#52

Post by lurking_swe »

PaulHoule wrote: post #17
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…

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…

I just wanted to point out that your preconceived notions about kettle bells are way off. nothing “girly” about them. They have origins in russia and europe actually.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kettlebell

Re: The Aging Programmer [video]

#53

Post by troyvit »

tonymet wrote: post #43

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 loa…

If you skim the transcript you'll see stuff like this:

> [...] a big part of what I want to talk about is things you can do in your 20s in your 30s in your 40s in your 50s that lead towards you being able to do what you want which could be nothing or could be programming in your 60s in your 70s uh in your 80s [...]

Further in she says:

> it's really astonishing the minute you have proof, visual proof to strangers that your body doesn't quite work people assume your mind doesn't quite work.

To her point, she's 63. We have no idea what she's seen in her life, what sacrifices she's had to make to get where she is today, or anything. What I see is that she is doing more about it now than most of us in this thread, and it might pay to look past her "poor physical condition" to see what she is conveying.

Re: The Aging Programmer [video]

#55

Post by Insanity »

tonymet wrote: post #43

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 loa…

100%. Not only does this help physically but mentally as well. My mental health improved by strides when I started exercising regularly.

Re: The Aging Programmer [video]

#56

Post by basfo »

I don't see a problem with my programming skills, but with my ability to play the corporate game.

Probably because i have a lot of experience, i kind of know when a manager wants to push a team too much because he wants to play some game of thrones with another manager. I know when they decide to ignore all warnings to get to a deadline, and then when everything explodes they blame someone else. I know when someone has no idea on what he is doing but has too much power. I know when they are demanding world class results on half the time and a tenth of the resources any serious company would dedicate to the effort.

Today you have this "go fast, break things" mentality, which sounds cool and "based", but justifies breaking any rule of software engineering (who has time to write test, amirite?).

And now with IA, is even worse, any manager thinks they can rewrite their stack because they got "hello world" running on localhost.

Maybe i'm getting old...

Re: The Aging Programmer [video]

#58

Post by [deleted] »

paganel wrote: post #11
monsieurgaufre wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're lucking that aging has not impact on programming, then.

I'm not yet 50, I'm "only" in my mid-40s, but for sure advancing in age has had an effect on the way I program code. For sure I won't be able to spend long hours in the night trying to decipher/solve a specific programming problem, I used to do that when I was younger. I also used to type a lot more code, as in, my fingers used to type a lot more, I can't physically afford to do that now because after a certain thres…

[deleted]

Re: The Aging Programmer [video]

#59

Post by cjbgkagh »

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.

That is true, I tend to use transgenderism instead of autism because the data is cleaner and that more than makes up for the smaller sample sizes. At least for the things I am interested in.

But for internet discussions I should have used the autism cluster instead.

Re: The Aging Programmer [video]

#60

Post by UncleOxidant »

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…

I thought I knew how to program 30 years ago (in my early 30s), but now realize that I didn't have much of a clue. So I think I'm hopefully a much better programmer than I was back then - though more aware of my weak areas and the fact that there seem to be a lot of them (the older I get, the less I know). I'm not sure concentration is the issue for me (though it is an issue and I know that social media etc. has killed my attention span) as much as not being able to sit for hours at a time anymore. I've gotta get up and walk around, go outside and move my achy joints. So more of a combination of physical and mental.
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