
Five Things Old Programmers Should Remember - LVB
https://medium.com/@garywiz/five-things-old-programmers-need-to-remember-e78caf0b0973
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ChuckMcM
Nicely said. I am always sad when I hear someone I know say "I knew how to do
this in the old system, this new stuff has so many bells and whistles it is
impossible to get anything done." I cringe inside. I don't doubt for a minute
that there are a lot of gratuitous features, but that the person has lost the
ability to see the heart of what is inside, that is a sad thing to lose.

My ephiphany came when I was writing some graphics code on a windows machine
and hating it. Visual studio wasn't what it is today and there was sooo much
worthless cruft to wade through. DirectX was the "new hotness" and it was a
sad place compared to OpenGL. But I met a young man who was succeeding
brilliantly, and I saw a bit of myself in him. And I realized the only
difference in how we approached the problem was the "wonder" we saw in how
amazing this stuff was.

I remembered the palpable shock of excitement I got when I checked the orbital
mechanics of a program (game really) I wrote in BASIC to dock with satellites
matched up with the actual results. Here I was in high school doing the same
calculations as someone in NASA, and that was huge for me. That sense of
wonder and excitement drove me to explore everything I could about computers
and technology. And then after I had been working for about 15 years I didn't
have it any more. It was just a job that had to get done, and for what ever
reason I was writing libc _again_.

I was going to quit but got enticed into joining another group which was doing
something new. And I decided I was not going to sit around and re-use old
knowledge, I was going to go back into learning mode. And have done so ever
since.

If you're past your mid 30's and wondering "why am I still doing this?" Take a
long hard look at that question. If you cannot rediscover the wonder that got
you into this business in the first place, you won't last because you won't
love it any more. And people who do still love it will replace you.

I've found that a lot of things in life are like that.

~~~
coldtea
> _Nicely said. I am always sad when I hear someone I know say "I knew how to
> do this in the old system, this new stuff has so many bells and whistles it
> is impossible to get anything done." I cringe inside. I don't doubt for a
> minute that there are a lot of gratuitous features, but that the person has
> lost the ability to see the heart of what is inside, that is a sad thing to
> lose._

"Lost the ability"?

How about sometimes they are indeed right and the new system IS an over-
engineered, overthought, and messy piece of crap?

Is there any logical law against this happening? (and all two often, e.g. see:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man-
Month#The_sec...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man-
Month#The_second-system_effect) ).

I don't buy that newer technology is by definition better and what's missing
the "the ability to see the wonder inside" \-- sometime it's just plain
crappier. And newer doesn't mean "more innovative" either...

Consider someone who was doing great with Smalltalk in the mid-nineties
getting forced into J2EE in the 00s...

~~~
ChuckMcM
In 1998 I was looking for bigger office space for the company and we looked at
the offices that had previously been ParcPlace Systems. In Adele Goldberg's
office was a white board with a zombie drawn on it sliding over to a cloud
labelled SmallTalk, the Zombie was a wearing a name badge that said "Java" :-)

But as accurate as your last statement is, I think we might be talking past
each other. I was writing from the context of someone who is trying to achieve
a development objective, and instead of making progress on that objective they
have become embroiled in the hatred of the tools they have to use or the
opportunities in the past that were lost. They have become "stuck".

It would be like me giving up on programming because I had to use Audio
cassettes to load programs. I looked past the crap tools because I was seeing
a better vision of what things could be. And that still works today, if you
let it. But I cringe when I see someone stuck there.

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thoughtsimple
An enthusiastic thumbs up. I don't want to be anything but a programmer. I
never have. I've tried starting companies. Rewarding but ultimately not
successful. I've been a manager. It was awful. I've only ever been happy when
creating software. Not always happy because the industry has major problems
but the only time I like my job is when I'm writing software. I've done
everything: QA, systems admin, build management and everything needed for
successful software engineering but programming is my passion. I'm going to be
a programmer until my brain won't let me continue.

I'm 53.

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jrapdx3
Pretty good article, as a genuine "old guy" myself the thoughts expressed
resonate with my experiences. Key thing is the willingness to keep on
learning, accepting the challenge of new ideas, glean from them their
essential merit, incorporate into our knowledge, and in that way increment the
value of old ideas.

Two aspects of becoming older deserve mention. It came as a shock when people
started to regard me as the "go to" resource to help solve problems the less
experienced workers didn't know how to solve. Getting those queries left me
wondering who was this "senior authority" they were talking to. Then I
realized it was me.

OTOH there's also the phenomenon of younger people tending to discount input
of the experienced worker, as in "you can't possibly understand what I'm
talking about". Perhaps this is the natural inverse of the first aspect,
though it seems terribly disrespectful.

Ultimately both phases must be handled similarly, that is, with grace and
patience. This requires a good measure of self-respect and accurate self-
assessment. Luckily, these are skills we are better able to acquire as we
continue to grow into true maturity.

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russell
The first paragraph reminds me that when I was in my 30s several decades ago,
Rick James, several friends, and I decided that we were going to found an old
programmers home reminiscent of the old sailors homes of a century ago. I
envisioned a Victorian house with a roofed wraparound porch and an ample
supply of rocking chairs. I have the house with a wraparound deck. All the
rest of the crew have retired to comfortable houses with significant others,
but I am still writing code, for pay, every day.

~~~
plonh
Are you saying that staying employee as a programmer is correlated to being
unmarried?

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nissehulth
This one felt like it was about myself, seems I'm about the same age as the
author. I've had several different titles on my business cards over the last
35 years including management, but I've come to realize that I'm a developer
by heart. Being able to make a living from something I enjoy doing anyway is
simply awesome!

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amelius
> And, if you’re an iOS programmer, please write a good email app for me, OK?
> I could really use one.

Only to be scooped by Apple, who will subsequently strong-arm me out of the
App store? No thanks.

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KasianFranks
A salient point for the Valley as a whole when he mentions "re-inventing the
obvious"

