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Poll: How old are you?

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Poll: How old are you?

#81

Post by cik »

Wow, so I finally registered for HN, just to be able to comment on this one. And man, I'm feeling old at 33.

I've having been developing professionally since 18. I took a weird route, spending one year at uni (17), then working full time, and getting my degrees at night before it was fashionable to do so. In ~15 years, I've had the gamut - developer to multi-geo team manager, with ownership of 9 datacenters. I vastly prefer software.

I'll echo edw519 there - quality of life increases dramatically once you get out of your 20's. The longer you're in it and learning, the more value you have. You've seen more, been around, and pick up new things faster - because they look like combinations of things you've seen before. Curve balls no longer freak you out, they're exciting.

tl;dr Getting older is actually awesome.

Re: Poll: How old are you?

#82

Post by mililani »

mindcrime wrote: post #61

Ugh. I turn 40 in 3 days. Thanks for the reminder. :-( All joking aside, it isn't so bad. EDW's chart above is pretty accurate in some ways. Certainly life doesn't end at 40(ish)... In my case, the main issues are more joint pain, more random stiffness (after long car rides or something, for example) and other minor physical issues. Well, that and adult-onset (type 2) diabetes. But that's managed with oral medication…

I turn 40 in a few months. And time is going by faster as I get older.

Re: Poll: How old are you?

#83

Post by peterhi »

edw519 wrote: post #42

58, writing more code, having more fun, reaching more people, & making more $ than ever, all of which still seem limitless: edw519's Hacker Quality of Life | ?? | ** | ** | ** | ** | ** | ** | ** | ** | ** | ***** ------------------------------- 10 20 30 40 50 60

Pretty much the same here. Been coding since I left school in 1979. Comfortable but not really seen much money but its a great life.

However I have finally started to move into management. Meetings, be nice to clients, billing and invoicing. Bit of a pain but I can still code and finally get to try and NOT be the sort of manager I used to complain about :)

Re: Poll: How old are you?

#84

Post by Legion »

CodeMage wrote: post #72
rjh29 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know you are well respected around here, but your ability to sound like a douche seems limitless too.

Just out of morbid curiosity, if you knew he was "well respected around here", what in the world were you hoping to accomplish by insulting him in your comment?

Just ignore him. I'm a little sad to see the comment get so many replies, instead of simply being downvoted into oblivion.

I'd love if we as a community could endeavor to give troll responses like that as little attention as possible.

Re: Poll: How old are you?

#85

Post by jpdoctor »

pvnick wrote: post #15
jpdoctor wrote: post #11

God these types of polls make me feel like a geezer. Just in case any of you whippersnappers are wondering what it feels like to start hacking in your teens and continue (in one form or another) to be hacking into your late 40s: It is pretty much the same after the first cup of coffee in the morning. Where it differs is the lull in the afternoon makes me want to nap. (So I do.) The drag is that until I look in the mi…

Have you encountered any agism in your line of work? Do you work with "trendy" languages and technologies or do you stick with tried-and-true, enterprisey type of stuff? Have you considered moving into management or have you always just preferred getting down on your hands and knees so to speak and hacking things together?

Great questions, answers inline.

> Have you encountered any agism in your line of work?

None, but I might be a weird case. When I finished grad school, I was hired by TI, then Bell Labs. Both treated me like royalty. Because I am not satisfied with being treated like royalty, I went out and founded a company during 2000. I raised a ton of money from VCs (money was free back then). Bootstrapped another. So I've been running my own businesses ever since.

> Do you work with "trendy" languages and technologies or do you stick with tried-and-true, enterprisey type of stuff?

A bunch of years in there were hardware hacking. So lots of C and C++ through the 90s, some perl for maintainance. Never saw the need for trendy stuff until I saw Ruby on Rails. That made light work of projects I had in front of me.

> Have you considered moving into management or have you always just preferred getting down on your hands and knees so to speak and hacking things together?

Largest management position was CTO of an 85 person company. I'm happy to manage people, and believe that I can manage over the range of herding-cats to drill-Sargent. I definitely prefer the role of Field Marshall to General, ie rolling in the mud with the troops compared to suit-and-tie rub-elbows-with-those-who-need-their-elbows-rubbed.

Lately though: All hacking + customer management. We're growing, so I suspect managing more people is going to be back in my future.

Re: Poll: How old are you?

#86

Post by anuragramdasan »

alexvr wrote: post #60

At what age would you say you were smartest, if you have noticed any fluctuation? I hear you mental power peaks at about 22 and begins to decline after 26, but that's pretty depressing, and I don't want to believe it, so if you have experience to counter or confirm this, please share. If you have noticed any decline in "fluid intelligence," is it negligible? Does your wisdom and experience outweigh any mental decline…

I really don't want to believe that. While yes I am 22, and I feel the most mentally powerful till now but I don't see how it could decline as soon as it hits 26. Too early.

I have had the privilege to work with tech folks on the other side of 40 and their experience was very handy as I was short in just that one field. Just the sheer experience helps them make better decisions. Also the fact that they have had more time to learn certain things compared to us younger ones must count to some extent maybe, right?

Re: Poll: How old are you?

#88

Post by jpdoctor »

drumdance wrote: post #20
drumdance wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can relate. I once saw a quote, maybe from Garrison Keillor? "Inside every old person is a young person wondering what the hell happened."

On the flip side, one thing getting older does is give you perspective about what's really important in life. I definitely am much more attentive to health and relationships, for example.

Very much so.

Great quote btw. It made me google it-- seems Cory Harvey Armstrong. is the author, whoever that is.

Re: Poll: How old are you?

#90

Post by davidcuddeback »

zallarak wrote: post #77
aaronblohowiak wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who fears ageism and my role as a hacker in light of the aging process, I am taking his post to be a beacon of light and hope, not anything resembling a 'douche'.

Trust me, anyone who perpetuates ageism is somewhat misled. A diversity in the ages of employees is probably the ideal situation, because I can think of advantages/disadvantages the presence of a certain each age group brings to a team. On the other hand, if you find yourself losing energy/physical fitness and your abilities, its your prerogative to remedy that.

I'm a younger (~30) engineer who's enjoyed working with a few older engineers. I'd be interested in hearing more about what you perceive to be the relative advantages/disadvantages of each age group.
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