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Do You Really Want to be Doing this When You're 50?

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Re: Do You Really Want to be Doing this When You're 50?

#81

Post by jacquesm »

Surio wrote: post #74
jacquesm wrote: post #36

Hell yes! There are many different kinds of programming, some are fun and some are not. If you really want to be doing this when you're 50 make sure you get good enough that you can pick the projects that are fun. If by the time you are 50 and you've been doing this for 3 decades you are still gluing api's that's not the fault of 'programming', that's a direct result of choices made earlier. And one more thing: on th…

@Jacquesm, I agree with your FU money concept and I am actively working on that. I think this comment is a byproduct (side-effect?! (-;) of your having achieved FI. But what you mentioned here is what I would consider "Let them eat cake instead" advice. :) Not well thought out. Nostalgia is a very powerful emotion, and besides historical perspectives are based on whatever set of lenses you choose to wear. Actually, o…

My grandparents would have been very happy with time and energy left over for 'hobbies and tinkering'.

Re: Do You Really Want to be Doing this When You're 50?

#82

Post by daliusd »

edw519 wrote: post #60

57, programming for 33 years with hardly a day off, and having more fun than ever. My motivation? It's not about the technology, the tools, the apps, the business, the customers, or even the money, although any of those can provide plenty of motivation. And believe it or not, it's not even about the happy dance feeling I get when something I built works for the first time. It's about the achievements of those who use…

So it is about achievements of your paying customers using your technology business's apps you wrote using tools at your hand. Simply put you are happy that you have created something useful to others or there is something more?

Re: Do You Really Want to be Doing this When You're 50?

#83

Post by Nimi »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #49

I love programming and still consider myself a programmer first, although I do a lot of other things too. If I wanted to rag on programming, I'd point out how many dysfunctional programming workplaces we have, or how our tools are always 100 times more complex than they need to be, or how setting up and managing the programming environment can take the joy right out of actually doing the work. (I could go on at lengt…

I thought XP actually imposes quite strict guidelines about how the work day should go? Everyone should be in the same physical office, and maintain pretty much the same "office hours" so they can pair for 4-hour sessions?

Re: Do You Really Want to be Doing this When You're 50?

#84

Post by xyzzy123 »

Yes. But not actually for technical reasons. I program to be a part of something, to participate in a vision or shared goal. I program because the experience of creating something is (currently) the major way that I have fun with people.

If I'm working on a projects/products I care about I think I could easily do that for the rest of my life.

At times, it's the enthusiasm of others which pushes me along, while I provide technical expertise / experience. Other times I will have a silly idea of the way the world should be, and I can use that to gather others around me and make their lives better.

Programming at its best, for me, is vision enabling :) How could you ever grow out of that?

Re: Do You Really Want to be Doing this When You're 50?

#85

Post by joshyeager »

michaelochurch wrote: post #77

I enjoy programming and would like to be doing it at 50, but with regard to the software industry itself... not in its current state. If you want to be able to survive more than 10 years in the software industry, you need to get manager-level clout and full autonomy over your work. That's non-negotiable. This industry destroys you if you don't have those things. The terrifying thing about the software industry is tha…

There is another option: find a really good manager who is able and willing to give you what you need, make sure they understand your value, and stay with them.

I don't really know how to do that, I just got lucky. I moved into management myself about five years ago (still working for the same guy), and I'm trying to be the same kind of manager for the people who work for me.

Re: Do You Really Want to be Doing this When You're 50?

#86

Post by talmir »

I am at 29 and finally after years of wanting it I landed my first software developer job(Didnt have the uni degree needed, but now I do, hells yeah!). I know that I will be happy doing this until the day they pry the keyboard/neural-thought2ascii interface from my cold, dead hands/brain.

Re: Do You Really Want to be Doing this When You're 50?

#87

Post by bradshaw1965 »

krig wrote: post #22
jgrahamc wrote: post #4

In short, yes, and I'm in my 40s. I actually returned to programming after years managing programmers in part because I was unhappy. I realized that the further I got from the machine and _making_ the less happy I was. So, if you asked me whether I wanted to be 'managing' at 50, I'd say "Hell, no!". The enjoyment of making things work, learning and shipping it real. I hope I'm still able to feel those things at 80. I…

32 here, and so far programming is the best thing I've ever done in life. The stress I've experienced has all emerged from my own expectations of myself, from wanting to excel. My mother is in her late fifties and recently returned to working in a children's daycare after being a manager for many years because working with children was what she was passionate about, and she realised she had advanced away from what ma…

What is it with fluorescent light and programmers? I left a gig specifically because of a mid-afternoon fluorescent hum that was soul sucking. Decent light and a good ergonomic work environment are so important.

Re: Do You Really Want to be Doing this When You're 50?

#89

Post by Surio »

lifebeyondfife wrote: post #31

I know and have worked with coders in their 50s, even 60s. They were very much what I'd call 9-to-5 coders though. They were never given big, important or new projects but as a consequence were never expected to burn the midnight oil. The main thing that looks unappealing to me about being a hacker decades from now is the constant cycle of learning. I'm on probably my 3rd generation upheaval. I've worked on a daily b…

I agree with the thrust of everything you mentioned. Just wanted to chime in.

>>They were never given big, important or new projectsAlso, in some orgs, the "seniors" are "expected to understand the architecture" (read: more arcana and API call memorisations) so they can "guide"/"mentor" the "juniors" and "participate" in "propelling" the organisation, blah blah. And this invariably leads to what the OP's saying >>It's about skimming great oceans of APIs that you could spend years studying and learning, but the market will have moved on by then and that's no fun anyway<<

Re: Do You Really Want to be Doing this When You're 50?

#90

Post by unsigner »

Game development in a fairly NIH-ish studio can be very close to the good scenario: very little API wrangling, very little red tape, the "client" (game designers and artists) are in the next room and generally reasonable. I'm not terrified by the idea of doing this 15 years from now, aka when I'm 50.
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