whoah!! 82 years old is still coding? that's very impressive
82-Year-Old Japanese Woman Finds Success in Coding
71–80 of 222 posts
Re: 82-Year-Old Japanese Woman Finds Success in Coding
#72I wonder how much of brain elasticity in as adults is just due to attitude. I generally find kids more eager to jump into new things, while adults are more stubborn and complacent towards new experiences. Once you have money or kids it's a lot easier to just have someone else do it for you. Still, at 82 I imagine most people will start developing issues with memory so it probably isn't an easy feat, and she's found m…
I wonder how much attitude is controlled by brain elasticity? Seriously, most non molecular biological explanations with regards to brain function are just tautologies. Your brain doesn't work because you don't try hard enough. You can't try hard enough because your brain doesn't work. This is the subject matter of thousands of clickbait articles.
Fair point but I think people generally intuitively separate learning ability or speed and willingness to learn. I've met my share of determined idiots and passive geniuses, given mostly when I was in school. To me it seems like, while they're probably related, brain elasticity and openness aren't inextricably linked, such that one is directly responsible for the other
Re: 82-Year-Old Japanese Woman Finds Success in Coding
#73I always found it funny, the idea that age or agism should in any way stop you from achieving cool shit in business. Entrepreneurship is a jungle. Your customers, largely speaking, doesn't know your age or gender or whether or not you went to an ivy league school or anything else. Some career directions certainly do depend on that stuff, but that's mostly because they depend on other people for advancement. But build…
My hat goes to the old lady, but frankly, if you feel the need to code and market something at age 82 then the odds are you're either struggling to make ends meet, which might warrant giving a cold hard look at the pension system in place, or you don't have and never have had much of a life outside of work - no kids or grand-(grand-)children, no hobbies, etc.
In retirement people pick up hobbies, where in the article does it say, she's using the proceeds to pay for rent?
Re: 82-Year-Old Japanese Woman Finds Success in Coding
#74I know Masako and I think what she has accomplished is pretty remarkable. Her story goes to show that people can accomplish anything they want, regardless of age, if they take joy from it.
I'm 60 years old. I'm teaching myself node.js and related tools. I find great joy in learning anyway but networked computers are still as amazing to me now as they were when I first encountered them in the 70s. If you ever speak to Masako, please tell her she inspired an old geek in America.
I will.
Re: 82-Year-Old Japanese Woman Finds Success in Coding
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
Funny how a lot of people assume that companies can only ever work with investor money...
If only Rework was required reading... I honestly think you could make an entire college course just based on the stuff that the Basecamp guys have put out there. I don't necessarily agree with their perspective 100%, but it's valuable to consider vastly different viewpoints.
Link for others: https://basecamp.com/books/rework
Re: 82-Year-Old Japanese Woman Finds Success in Coding
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
I suspect adults learn languages a lot faster than kids, when we spend the same amount of time being exposed & practicing. All the polyglots say you have to be willing to mess up a lot and work to shed your fear of feeling stupid. In fact, try to seek it out because that's the primary way you get feedback & learn.
I'd suspect it's easier for children to learn unfamiliar spoken languages than adults (they don't have to un-learn certain patterns from a native language). I'd postulate it's probably easier for trained adults to learn new programming languages as they're more familiar with structured syntax and the semantics involved, and are more likely to have exposure/experience with a similar language. Also, concepts from one p…
My experience is the opposite. I don't have to unlearn native patterns. I learn a different pattern, and switch to it. Because I understand grammar and the parts of speech as an adult, at a level beyond simply having copied it from people around me, I can understand foreign, completely different grammar, at an intellectual level.
When I speak (and learn) Japanese, my conscious understanding of Japanese grammar simply makes it easier. The same when I speak French. I don't unlearn anything; I learn different patterns, and I simply switch to them.
In fact, it's what you suggested about programming languages, but for spoken languages. In my experience, adults can learn foreign languages far faster than children can. Maybe it appears that children are better at it because they are completely immersed in the language they need to learn and have no other means of communication. If I spent 16 hours a day immersed in a foreign language, with people trying to communicate with me and no other way of communicating back, I reckon I'd pick it up pretty swiftly.
Re: 82-Year-Old Japanese Woman Finds Success in Coding
#77I always found it funny, the idea that age or agism should in any way stop you from achieving cool shit in business. Entrepreneurship is a jungle. Your customers, largely speaking, doesn't know your age or gender or whether or not you went to an ivy league school or anything else. Some career directions certainly do depend on that stuff, but that's mostly because they depend on other people for advancement. But build…
My hat goes to the old lady, but frankly, if you feel the need to code and market something at age 82 then the odds are you're either struggling to make ends meet, which might warrant giving a cold hard look at the pension system in place, or you don't have and never have had much of a life outside of work - no kids or grand-(grand-)children, no hobbies, etc.
There's quite a common phenomenon where when people stop working, say through forced retirement, they die pretty soon afterwards. It's the same reason why having time on your hands leads to depression. People want to do things and feel useful.
She's building free apps to help the elderly, it would be a reasonable assumption to assume that she's not making a living off it.
Re: 82-Year-Old Japanese Woman Finds Success in Coding
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd suspect it's easier for children to learn unfamiliar spoken languages than adults (they don't have to un-learn certain patterns from a native language). I'd postulate it's probably easier for trained adults to learn new programming languages as they're more familiar with structured syntax and the semantics involved, and are more likely to have exposure/experience with a similar language. Also, concepts from one p…
My experience is the opposite. I don't have to unlearn native patterns. I learn a different pattern, and switch to it. Because I understand grammar and the parts of speech as an adult, at a level beyond simply having copied it from people around me, I can understand foreign, completely different grammar, at an intellectual level. When I speak (and learn) Japanese, my conscious understanding of Japanese grammar simply…
Interesting. I admittedly don't have much experience learning foreign languages; I did K-12 in the US and was only required to take 2 years of Spanish. I'd assumed from discussions with other students taking, for example German, that it'd be more difficult. Versus programming languages, I've learned, C, C++, C#, Java, Python and Perl (and I supposed a modicum of JS) as well as x86, x64, 68k, MIPS, z80 and Atmel AVR assembly. I've always had an easier time learning a new programming language/assembler than a foreign natural language. Maybe that's just me.
Re: 82-Year-Old Japanese Woman Finds Success in Coding
#79I always found it funny, the idea that age or agism should in any way stop you from achieving cool shit in business. Entrepreneurship is a jungle. Your customers, largely speaking, doesn't know your age or gender or whether or not you went to an ivy league school or anything else. Some career directions certainly do depend on that stuff, but that's mostly because they depend on other people for advancement. But build…
What are some examples of successful businesses that launched and operate without person-to-person contact and negotiations? Purely automated online operations conceal identities, sure, but investors usually know who the entrepreneurs, and major clients and vendors and joint-venture partners do too.
as i get older and if (potentially) gets harder to land clients i figure i'll just do more remote work. i think ageism is more related to visual bias than anything else
edit: meaning cognitive bias kicks in after the visuals more than anything else -- although i highly doubt anyone would be jumping to hire an 82 year old (or even 70 year old) regardless of visuals. i'd prefer not to be coding for money at that age though.
Re: 82-Year-Old Japanese Woman Finds Success in Coding
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wonder the same thing trying to learn a new language. I notice the biggest difference between me and a child is that children don't care about messing up. Meanwhile I often have this worthless apprehension of "better not practice Spanish on these Spanish speakers, I might mess up and feel stupid." I tried to learn Spanish like I learned how to program. Now I'm living proof that you can become good enough to read bo…
> I notice the biggest difference between me and a child is that children don't care about messing up. A physiological difference you wouldn't have noticed are that children will be making more neural connections than adults at that stage of their development.
But they have significantly less neural connections overall, and you already have whole sets of neural connections available to reuse at a very high level - there’s no evidence yet that the neural connections children are making are stronger or more flexible than the adult ones in your brain right now. In fact given how most humans become more intelligent as they age (compare a 20 year old to a 40 year old) it’s likely that the brain continues to improve.