
Yes I Still Want To Be Doing This at 56 - jerhewet
http://thecodist.com/article/yes_i_still_want_to_be_doing_this_at_56
======
f4stjack
Actually burning midnight oil is a myth. I mean we all know the myth: You grab
your coffee, black as night and sweet as sin, you sit in front of your
computer with your favourite IDE on. Then you code until the sun sets and you
go home with a majestic smile on your face. Because, you - the lonely coder -
has saved the day. Yet again.

I mean I was really into this image when I was 20. Now, after had some
experience in the field I see that, this very act should be resorted when you
have no choice. If you have a tight deadline and all you have to do is code, I
mean not think and code but just code - no abstractization is involved, this
works. But if you have to plan-code a project this approach sucks. Because you
get tired as the night progresses and tired minds do make mistakes. A lot. So
while the bugs coalesce you go into smart fixes. Because it has to end
tomorrow, right? Then when you return to your code one week/month/year later
you'll say: \- What the heck have I done here?!

Resting is as important as coding for a coder IMHO. No need to burn ourselves
out for a myth. And yes I want to do it when I am 50 or 60.

~~~
wglb
Actually, it is not a myth. I have done this, more when I was younger, but it
still happens occasionally.

One reason for the midnight oil is that the phone stop ringing, everybody else
goes home, there are no distractions. Another reason is that the business
demands it. Let me give you an example. There is a story that the folks at
WordPerfect, which had (and still has, if my mother is any indication)
fiercely loyal customers. They had a very family-oriented company culture, and
nobody stayed past 5. Microsoft did not go home at five, except maybe at 5 am.
Microsoft ate their lunch.

In several situations, I could not get access to computers until after the day
shift went home. In Portland, while on co-op during college, I would walk to
work at about 0200. The path took me past a bakery that was in full-on baking
mode. While building a real-time medical data system, we had one production
computer and a second computer that was occasionally used for production at
night, so we worked nights to integrate both parts of production so that the
other computer would be available for development all day.

And sometimes a problem will grab you and not let you go. The story of
fluidics has as its beginning a 36 hour creative burst by its major
contributor. And there are problems that I have worked on that have a multi-
hour daily mental ramp-up.

The myth part of this is that you can get away with doing this constantly. You
can't. As you say _this very act should be resorted when you have no choice_.

What the midnight oil has taught us in the industry is that the best
programming is done in an environment free of interruptions, and that the
plentiful availability of development equipment removes scheduling constraints
previously imposed on programming.

And I am older than those two numbers and still occasionally pull the midnight
oil.

~~~
StavrosK
These are two different things. One is working at night, and the other is
working non-stop. I like working at night (I wake up at 1ish pm and go to
sleep at 4-5) because it's more quiet.

I don't put in 16-hour days, though. There's a clear distinction between the
two, and "burning the midnight oil" refers to the former. You can get the
advantages of working nights without overworking.

------
donebizkit
Yesterday's post was closer to the actuality of a programmer than this one. To
reiterate what I said yesterday, when you are coding professionally, you don't
choose what technologies to use, you don't pick projects that itch your
creative side. You're just part of a production steam roll. Passion is
irrelevant in this discussion. What matters is how fast you can deliver and
whether you are more billable than the next guy. The other parameter in this
equation is Money. I am sure I can find a low stress dev job working on a
project that I am actually interested in but at age 50 i don't want to be
living on medium wage making ends meet. I'd rather work on a high stress job,
while I am young, with a decent salary, giving it all I have and by 40 I'd
have secured my future enough that I can do something else ... my two cents

~~~
SomeCallMeTim
>you don't choose what technologies to use

I do, at least some of the time.

>you don't pick projects that itch your creative side

Right I'm doing contract work, so actually I do tend to pick the interesting
projects. Before that I had a job where I specified the technology that I was
using -- and that everyone else had to use. Before that I picked a job that
used technology I wanted to be using. And so on...I haven't been "forced" to
use a technology that I didn't think appropriate for a long time (unless you
count the idiot decisions by Google and Apple to use Java and Objective C,
respectively, but I've been minimizing my contamination by both).

And it was exactly passion and an urge to learn, just as the guy described in
the article, that enabled me to be in this position. My contract work pays up
to $125/hour, and I'm rapidly approaching age 50, so what were you saying
about "medium wage"? Or do you work for Wall Street and make twice that now?

Or maybe you've got the wrong job? Or you don't have a passion for
programming? As he said, if you don't have it, you'll burn yourself out and go
elsewhere.

~~~
donebizkit
A contract worker with a luxury of selecting which client's projects to work
on and get paid $125/hour. You realize your are the 1%. The 99% have more
constraints and hardships.

~~~
SomeCallMeTim
I am "the 1%"? Not nearly, if you mean "THE 1%," which starts at around $350k
per year.

If you just mean the top 1% of developers? Well, maybe I AM in the top 1% of
developers, though I don't know how anyone could measure that. But the point
is I got here through passion. And the point of my reply is that passion IS
relevant to this discussion.

And that it's only not relevant to people who don't experience it with regard
to programming. Honestly, I don't know if someone who doesn't experience
passion can CHANGE that; you're passionate about what you're passionate about,
and telling yourself to obsess about something seems like it just wouldn't
work.

So don't take this as any kind of criticism; I'm not saying you're Doing It
Wrong. Just that passion DOES make a difference; when you have it, you have no
reason to listen to people who tell you that you'll be irrelevant and no one
will hire you when you're 45, because you'll be keeping yourself relevant out
of habit. Just don't claim that it's not relevant in general, because it is.
Climbing to the top of ANY profession or other endeavor really requires it;
the most obvious example being Olympic athletes, who typically don't start out
at the top of their sport, but achieve the top by being more passionate (and
therefore obsessive) about practicing.

It makes me want more terms for "programmer" or "developer" (and not including
"rock star", which has connotations that annoy people). There's such a range
of skill encompassed by those terms that they're practically useless, and they
spawn debates like the above where people have 15 different ideas what a
"programmer" is (in yours, I'm in the top 1%, and in mine, I hang out with
"typical" developers, and yet a lot of people I know work on interesting
projects with an option to contract). Heck, pretty much everyone at Google is
in a similar situation, in that they can (typically) switch projects easily if
they get bored. And there are far too many developers at Google for all of
them to be in the top 1%, I think.

~~~
donebizkit
I understand where you're coming from. PASSION (with capital letters) is
important. PASSION for programming is what got me to get a BA and MA in
computer science. It's what makes me sit in front of my computer working on
side projects whenever I have a chance to. However, the point of this article
and the original one is not that. These articles speak of the day to day
stress loaded routine job of a regular* developer. And this is where passion
(with lower case letters) is not important. My point about the 1% vs the 99%
is that not everyone works for Google, Facebook ... In fact, all the contract
workers I know struggle a great deal to make ends meet. We need to broaden our
analysis to the sate of programming in the whole world. I am not talking about
silicon valley or the bay area, which I consider to be the 1%. I had the
chance of working in mid-west USA and in a foreign country and I have friends
working in other countries. All I can say is that the majority of them don't
want to be programming when they are 50.

------
scott_meade
I'm 43. I concur Mr. Wulf that "large scale, high stress coding" is "a stupid
person's game". Now, some people find a thrill in coding under pressure. More
power to 'em. Yet we see too many developers accidentally ending up in high
stress coding situations and thinking that is the norm and accepting it as
their fate. There is no reason it should be this way. Professional programming
should be and can be fun, enjoyable, creative. As Mr. Wulf states, our
profession offers an unusually wide variety of projects, tools, teams, and
working environments.

Choose poorly from among this variety and you'll burn out. Choose wisely and
you'll have a long, enjoyable career with plenty of extra mind and body
capacity for other interests. It's up to you.

------
rbellio
It's really interesting to see the perspective of an older peer when it comes
to development. I've been writing code since I was 10 (19 years ago) and have
been doing it professionally for about eight years. To look back sometimes and
see the differences in myself as a coder and wonder about what it will look
like going forward is a favorite wandering for my brain.

I think the one thing that I find most common in my career has been coworkers,
within 10 years of retirement, that have just given up and no longer put in
what's needed to be a coder. I enjoy the company of someone who has had more
experience (it's part of how you learn) and love to hear about the battles
that the people before me had to fight.

I start my day by asking myself some questions. Where is the technology at
right now? Where is it going? How does it relate to my job? How does it relate
to my interests? How does it relate to what I've done in the past? Where am I
at as a developer? The problem is that people stop asking themselves all of
these questions and start weighting towards a few in particular.

~~~
SoftwareMaven
I'm in the middle now. I've had several opportunities to work with software
developers in their 50's. _Without fail_ , the experience was good.

Work at good companies, and the people you work with will be good.

------
henrik_w
On the subject of working a lot of hours, this article argues that a 40-hour
work week is optimal (you don't get more done even if you work longer hours)
[http://www.alternet.org/story/154518/why_we_have_to_go_back_...](http://www.alternet.org/story/154518/why_we_have_to_go_back_to_a_40-hour_work_week_to_keep_our_sanity?paging=off)

~~~
ken
I only skimmed that article, but I don't see anywhere it says 40 hours is
optimal. I only see where it says every hour beyond 40 is harmful:

"By the eighth hour of the day, people's best work is usually already behind
them (typically turned in between hours 2 and 6)."

It sounds like 30 hours might well be optimal, but has simply never been
tested.

~~~
mattm
Actually it has. See Kellogg's 6 hour day

~~~
ken
That looks like it's about round-the-clock shifts for factory workers. I can
think of a lot of differences between that and, say, computer programmers that
might render the conclusion less relevant.

For example, I don't know any software companies in the world that build
software with 3 8-hour shifts of workers.

------
omellet
I'll never stop coding. I may not continue as a professional, but there will
always be the creative itch to scratch. Creative in the sense that I feel
compelled to create, not that it's necessarily fine art. It's not limited to
software, either. I love working on my house, I like to cook, to tinker with
hardware projects. That 'click' I get from creating something is just so
rewarding, and I hope that will always be true.

------
nhebb
> _Every morning I read a number of websites devoted to technology and
> programming to see what is new._

I looked over at his sidebar hoping to see a blogroll. Remember when people
used to do that ... about 5 years ago? I wouldn't call it irony, but reading
about coding at 56 while getting nostalgic for 5 year old internet practices
is a strange juxtaposition.

------
nissimk
Thanks for the post. It's inspirational to see something like this. You seem
to have a very good attitude about working and software development / learning
and it helps me to feel better and overcome my own sometimes negative
attitude. I'll be reading your whole site.

------
Tomis02
Here we go again. Conversation through HN submissions.

~~~
saraid216
I wouldn't call it a conversation. He doesn't remotely address a single point
in the original post. We could call it a presidential debate, maybe?

~~~
Aron
I probably should just upvote you but I chuckled aloud.

------
tlogan
The only problem for being a programmer in 40s and 50s is that it is really
hard to find a job. This pretty much the only problem, but I guess that is a
big problem :(

~~~
diego
That really depends. On the internet nobody needs to know that you are 40 or
50. Finding a permanent job at a SV company may be harder, but freelancing /
contracting is not.

~~~
tlogan
That is 100% true. Unfortunately, large chunk of new (and good paying) jobs
are created by these new companies which require "cultural fit".

~~~
michaelochurch
I would argue that a company that rejects a competent 50-year-old on "cultural
fit" is not worth considering unless you're desperate. That's douchey even by
VC-funded startup standards.

That comment says nothing about what percentage of companies are like that. I
don't have enough data to know if they're common or rare.

I'd guess that the signal:noise ratio of jobs available at age 50 gets better.
Ninety percent of software jobs are shitty, but I also think that companies
offering shitty jobs are more likely to age-discriminate, because older people
are not likely to fall into the premature emotional investment trap.

------
cinbun8
Its a matter of perspective and preference. When you are young you don't mind
fidgeting with things, leaning their inner working and trying to get something
to work. When something is done you can point to it proudly and cry 'I did
that'. As you get older you start to lose your patience with technology and
sympathize with the user a little. Your perspective could be - 'Why wont this
just work !'.

Perhaps it is a matter of patience. I would not know since I'm not 56 yet. OP
- A toast to the fire that is still burning within you. May it keep burning
for a long time. Have fun writing code.

------
clueless123
Good coding is half art, 1/2 science. During creative periods I can go on
coding for hours with out even realizing it. When I work like that, I easily
go through the night pulling the "midnight oil". The only difference between
now (at 50) and then, is the recovery time from the all nighter. Lately I tend
to be less motivated to do it so often.

~~~
equalarrow
Absolutely, I always refer to coding as 'creative logic'. :) The Art of
Happiness At Work by the Dalai Lama and Howard Cutler is a great book. It
talks about flow/being in the zone and after reading about that, I've really
felt lucky to have experienced that mode of pure focus and true moment
oriented existence.

I was never a person that stayed up all night coding, though. I'm a morning
person and my body/mind were always like "no way". _But_ , that being said, I
have woken up many times at 3 or 4 and cranked all the way through until 7 or
8 that night. So I think it just depends on your natural biorhythms.

I'm not 50 yet, but already am finding it harder and harder to get a 'good
day' of coding in with a wife and 8mo old son. Besides distractions galore, my
next big loss is sleep. I definitely feel that side and I'm even having a hard
time sometimes remembering things in conversation. I think of it as not having
my ECC ram. :)

However, like many other postings, I will probably code until I die or until I
just can't understand anything anymore. Then I'll probably just back to my
8-bit machines and assembly; the days when things were simpler. The
quintessential old man out of step. Heh.

------
happywolf
I am curious which area the OP has been working on. I would say the work
pressure is a function of the management, the requirements, and the sector
where you work on. For example, mobile applications tend to have shorter
release cycles, and therefore a much hectic schedule.

~~~
cunac
shorter release cycle doesn't have to be hectic; what makes it hectic is
unreasonable number of features which is poor planing. You will end up coding
24/7 in cycle of any length if workload to deliver all in given time frame is
greater than what you can deliver working only regular hours. That is poor
planing regardless of sector and length of release cycle

------
rooshdi
Boy, if I could make it to 40 that would be a doozy. I do wonder if
programming will be obsolete in a few decades and if the things we've
programmed will start programming us. Well, I guess they already do in a way.

------
semtec
The key to enjoying any endeavor is working SMART. I love to code, but I also
love not to code. The right mix of hard work and 'laziness' should keep great
programmers enthusiastic and sharp way past 56!

~~~
lttlrck
a little procrastination helps too.

------
angeladur
My dad is 49 and he still works on projects till 11-12 in the night. Ask him
and he always says 'I am doing a build, no idea how long will it take'

------
vowelless
I have been coding since I was 11... I am 23 now. I cannot imagine a different
outcome for myself.

------
kokey
I read that as someone who really wasn't able to continue being a chemist into
his 50s.

------
angeladur
Are unpaid overtime common in the States?

------
michaelochurch
_"But large scale, high stress coding? I may have to admit that's a young
man's game." No, it's a stupid person's game (sure it's mostly men, but not
100%). I'm 55 and have been coding professionally since 1981 and started in
school in 1973 or so. One thing I've learned for sure is that coding yourself
to death is not worth it in the end._

People who want to be coding in their 50s should follow this advice. It's
burning yourself out on arbitrary deadlines for meaningless business bullshit
that pushes a lot of us out. A 5-year burnout, at any age, is pretty much
impossible to recover from in this industry.

Programming becomes less bipolar (for lack of a better word) as you get older
because you stop getting emotionally invested in things that don't deserve it,
and you also become more willing to steal an education at work (thus ensuring
that, regardless of what your project does, you'll be fine).

~~~
jamesmcn
People who want to be coding at all should follow this advice.

An easy way to turbocharge a team of hot-shot young developers is as follows:
Tell them to not come in over the weekend (unless there is a seriously
important deadline that cannot be handled any other way, and this has been
discussed with the team). Tell them to go home in time to be able to go out to
dinner or catch a movie (tricky, because odds are good that they are coming in
to work late, and we do want everyone doing roughly 8 hour days, five days a
week). Tell them to spend less time coding and more time planning.

It can take a few weeks for the improvements to materialize, but overall
productivity will go up. Code quality will go up. Energy and enthusiasm will
go up. Once you see these upticks, you can work on all the other things that
the team needs to do to improve their code.

And then when the shit hits the fan and you do need to push the team, there
will be room to push them. They will have energy reserves they can draw on.
They will have trust in you as a manager. They will be able to draw on that
extra 10%.

Marathon coding is a great way to deliver a terrible product that is hard to
maintain

