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I would have hired Doug, but...

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Re: I would have hired Doug, but...

#91

Post by 31reasons »

scrozier wrote: post #17
curun1r wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. I see too many older developers who complain about ageism, but what's really going on is that they're essentially the same developer they were 2-3 years into their career. If you've been working in the industry for over 20 years, employers can and should expect that you've made the most of it. Those developers have very few problems with ageism. It's the ones that have become comfortable and stagnated that have…

I am 57 and quite current. I have launched several startups and kept fresh constantly. My current client has me doing lots of leading edge stuff that some of their younger devs couldn't do. And yet I do feel the ageism. I understand it and I'm not angry about it, but it's real, nonetheless. It's not a good feeling.

What kind of ageism have you experienced ? Can you describe some experiences ?

Re: I would have hired Doug, but...

#92

Post by munificent »

lisper wrote: post #65
SCHiM wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't imagine all the technologies and skills you guys have acquired. If I may derail the conversation a little bit, may I ask if/how you use the things you've learned today? I mean, is it things like paradigms that have stuck with you like OOP/functional/w\e, or do you always structure your exception handling in a certain way, no matter the language? Are there skills/technologies you've been using since you've sta…

No more BASIC, but I still code in Common Lisp whenever I can. And I'm using some library code that I wrote when I was in grad school 25 years ago. Once you grok Lisp, everything else is easy. You come to realize that the vast majority of what passes for "new technologies" is really just a re-discovery of something that exists (or is easily implemented) in CL. That makes it a lot easier (if a tad frustrating at times…

> no other language has co-opted yet.

Check out Dylan, Julia, and my old hobby language Magpie[1].

[1]: http://magpie-lang.org/multimethods.html

Re: I would have hired Doug, but...

#93

Post by dannyr »

guard-of-terra wrote: post #3

I'm 30 now (from time to time I feel that I've already lived enough and am mostly done), the idea of expecting at least 30 productive years ahead of me is intriguing.

I'm trying to figure out if your situation is fortunate or unfortunate.

You're fortunate that you've done what you have wanted to achieve at 30 yrs old.

Unfortunate that you feel like you're done at age 30.

Re: I would have hired Doug, but...

#94

Post by nine_k »

no1publicenemy wrote: post #86
bliti wrote: post #67

As someone who started programming during the mid 80's: - Everything I've learned may be applied to most languages. Meaning that writing testable code generally translates from BASIC to Javascript. - Programming should always make you feel stupid. Feeling comfortable with something means that you stopped learning new things. - Experience != Knowledge. My biggest issue with some older programmers is that they tend to…

With all due respect, how would mobile devices replace/match the computing experience I have now with my 27" computer? How would be that possible? Good spirit and even better understanding of the Zeitgeist :)

Do you happen to have a TV? A fine large display for most folks.

For pros (programmers) there will continue to exist dedicated large displays, pro keyboards and whatever else. Look at professional gear of audio or video engineers, or CAD users, they have pretty impressive devices to use with computers. It's just not what mass users have at home.

Fully offline desktop computing will remain possible, much like running a C64 or an MSX machine (possibly in a form of new, much cooler hardware) remains possible. It's just not very relevant.

Re: I would have hired Doug, but...

#95

Post by demachina »

no1publicenemy wrote: post #86
bliti wrote: post #67

As someone who started programming during the mid 80's: - Everything I've learned may be applied to most languages. Meaning that writing testable code generally translates from BASIC to Javascript. - Programming should always make you feel stupid. Feeling comfortable with something means that you stopped learning new things. - Experience != Knowledge. My biggest issue with some older programmers is that they tend to…

With all due respect, how would mobile devices replace/match the computing experience I have now with my 27" computer? How would be that possible? Good spirit and even better understanding of the Zeitgeist :)

Mobile devices will presumably jack in to large monitors or head mounted displays of some kind, plus a good keyboard of some kind, and pointing device(track pad). Thanks to Moores law you should be able to have the equivalent of a desktop experience driven by a mobile device soon.

The one problem is being slave to Apple and Google having absolute control of the OS, software and apps you can run. The only plus is their hegemony does help with security but neither one of them is even remotely trustable with the keys to every personal computer on the planet. There is irony that the creator of the big brother commercial in 1984 is increasingly, you know, big brother.

P.S.

Not sure how Daves self promotion blogging rose so far on hacker news. It actually has almost nothing to do with Doug Engelbart. He was just name dropping, something he often does, before doing what he usually does, self promotion. Yes there is that age discrimination angle which plays well with some old programmers, but not me.

People who spend their time complaining about discrimination should spend more time doing something that people will value regardless of your age, sex or gender. At that point your age, sex and gender become irrelevent especially on the Internet which tends to be blind to these things until you wear them on your sleeve. Dave likes to use his age to promote a martyr complex angle.

Ive looked at most of Daves recent projects and none of them are particularly interesting.

Re: I would have hired Doug, but...

#97

Post by edpichler »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #39
blisterpeanuts wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Me 3! 56, first prog job was in '87. Now I'm steadily employed in a dream job, working from home, writing mobile apps and exploring new "IoT" technologies. If this job ends, which all jobs do sooner or later, I'm hoping to starting my own company, finally, and ride that into retirement. But life continues to be an adventure and you never know what lies around the next bend in the road!!! Best of luck to you and to pe…

Let's make it an even 4! Just turned 50 yesterday. Wrote my first contract program in 1982 when I was 17. Today I teach teams how to rock-and-roll. I also keep coding, but mostly as a hobby. It has nothing to do with programming -- I simply have too many irons in the fire to do all of the things I love as much as I want to.

I fell as you guys. I am very excited with technology since I started. There is so much new and interesting things to play and read that I have no time to do it all.

I can clearly that each year more and more interesting things appear. The speed is also increasing, in way I can't digest it all. It's difficult what to choose, to prioritize is the key to deal with it.

I always get myself wondering how much new things I will see next years.

I'm 30 now, and I started with 17.

Re: I would have hired Doug, but...

#98

Post by jakejake »

I read an article recently that said something to the effect that most people stop listening to new music at age 33. I kinda feel the same about programming. There are a lot of people still doing it, but not as many that are truly excited about learning new things.

When we bring on young people they have a ton of energy and are excited to try every new thing which, don't get me wrong, is awesome. But they do occasionally criticize me for moving too cautiously, even though I am plenty excited about trying new things. I always think to myself, call me back in about 15 years and we'll see whether you evolve into the rockstar that you envision yourself to be, or else if you stagnate, burn out, move onto something else, etc. I always hope they do become the rockstar.

Re: I would have hired Doug, but...

#99

Post by sgt101 »

_yosefk wrote: post #37
bentcorner wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think I'm coming to grasps with this too. I'm over 30 and have spent most of my life building large desktop applications in C/C++. I want to eventually work remote, and looking at what's out there, there are very few opportunities with someone with my skillset. It's all modern frameworks and languages. So, I'm spending some of my own time learning some of this stuff.

Embedded programming is much more stable wrt languages and (often non-existent) frameworks. Nice for C/C++ devs.

I worked as a C and then C++ dev for a few years and then I started a Ph.D writing a C++ code base.

I remember the day that I got java 0.7 running on my spark 20. I would never touch the STL again, never have to worry about malloc and #def overwrites. No more gdb.

There's not much nice for c/c++ devs, pity them.

Re: I would have hired Doug, but...

#100

Post by tptacek »

DannoHung wrote: post #73
rayiner wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not a programmer anymore, so I don't have a horse in this race, but I cringe when people exhort older programmers to "stay current." If you're spending your free time learning about distributed databases, machine learning, cryptography--fields that existed in the 1990's but are more relevant and developed today because of the web--you're becoming a better programmer. If you're figuring out the latest "compile to…

Unfortunately for non-fad followers, the people with money want to use the fads. Shouldn't having the knowledge of what you could do in 1994 make you that much better suited to doing it in 2015 even if you have to spend a few days learning the faddish way of expressing the concepts?

The point isn't that you can insulate yourself from the fads; the point is that you should spend your career-building time on fundamental skills acquisition, and pick up faddish frameworks and languages on a JIT basis. People who can write compilers generally aren't too intimidated by compile-to-JS languages.
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