

Why you would want to program at fifty (or any other age) - trucious
http://blog.vivekhaldar.com/post/34386970746/why-you-would-want-to-program-at-fifty-or-any-other

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felanthropop
Please change the font. The word "meme" looks like "mcmc".

As a developer that is much closer to 50 than many here are, I can say that
it's a crapshoot whether I will be programming when I'm 50. I tired of it
after a handful of years, but decided to stay on with it because I can't
afford the paycut, and am still am going with it, getting close to 15 years
now. But everyday, and I've tried another employer, I still can't stand it. I
enjoy the freedom and art and creativeness, but when things don't work, which
happens a lot, I waste time on it and feel stupid and depressed. Feeling smart
1% of the time and stupid 99% of the time and worrying about whether you will
be able to continue it without getting fired is a horrible way to live. It has
affected my health, my attitude, and makes me drink more than I should at
times. But, we justify this with "we are making a good living".

Common things I think about doing are (1) buying and running a bar, but then I
would have to deal with the alcoholics, prostitution, drugs, and other crap
that goes with it (not worth it) and would feel that I was contributing to an
evil in our society even though I love beer and good times, (2) selling old
computer equipment and games (there is little money here, and I'm not a
hardware expert, so screw that), (3) getting involved with my church (but they
don't need more IT, I'm a developer anyway not IT, and I have no idea what
else I have to offer), (4) helping humanity get into space (but I have little
to offer there also), (5) developing Indie games (which I've done in the past
to some extent, but I think that writing games just means that people will
waste time away from their family and solving problems playing them), (6)
going to work for a non-profit development group (but I'm a conservative, and
I can't work with tree-huggers even if I have a very liberal opinion that
software should be free or open source, which I realize is not the same). So
instead, I take care of my family.

~~~
michaelochurch
The pain in programming is that we have this 21st-century superpower but the
only way we can make money is to suit 19th-century industrial masters who
don't understand what's _possible_ with technology. They just want us to point
our magical tech wands at their existing machines and make them run faster. If
we do this kind of thing for too long (and it's the only way to get a reliable
income) we lose that "superpower" and become ordinary due to creative atrophy.
Then we're fired and replaced by young idiots who think the all-nighters and
low autonomy are paving the way to millions, and who will therefore tolerate
more bullshit because they haven't seen yet that all the suffering leads
nowhere.

Markets and capitalism are supposed to fix this fundamental problem (archaic,
stupid leadership) by reallocating resources where they can be best put to
use, by this isn't a problem that mere computation (as in a market) can solve.
The problem is that power is held by the wrong fucking _people_ , most of whom
are total imbeciles with no vision, and the runaway feedback loop where power
and wealth beget same is too far gone for talent to break in and change
things.

US-style corporate capitalism is an outright disaster but, while EU-style
socialism makes life suck a lot less for average people, it doesn't solve the
underlying problem either.

Eventually, the discrepancy between _what's possible_ with technical
creativity and what's being _actually_ done out there will reach a critical
point and, like an insulator breakdown, sudden and powerful change will
happen. I have absolutely no idea when that will happen, though. We have to
purge and recreate the whole industrial ecosystem in order to get to the kind
of world that people like you and me want-- a world driven by creativity and
challenging problems rather than subordination and nonsense.

~~~
dualogy
Huh, what's all this capitalism talk... as far as I know, his main pain in
programming was just this:

> I enjoy the freedom and art and creativeness, but when things don't work,
> which happens a lot, I waste time on it and feel stupid and depressed.
> Feeling smart 1% of the time and stupid 99% of the time

Yeah guess what, that same thing gets at me ever since I started programming.
I still like doing it, but that aspect is truly increasingly an issue in the
activity since late 20s / early 30s now. How enjoyable you spend big chunks of
your lifetime does matter after all, and you increasingly get that horrible
nagging "time's flying faster every day now, I'm running out of a fixed
resource one compiler error at a day" feeling..

------
radicalbyte
A colleague of mine who is 62 has, in 6 months, become incredibly effective in
C#. He has learnt it faster, and his output is better than the 24 year olds
who had to make the same switch.

He has been there and done it all: punch cards, assembly, VB6, managed a
development team and worked for 20 years as a Project Manager.

He told me a few weeks ago that he never wants to retire. Work less - sure -
but he doesn't want to stop. And with an ability like his, he won't need to.

In 30 years, when I'm 62, I want to be like him :)

~~~
michaelochurch
I don't think programmers necessarily decline with age. With the ones who keep
their curiosity about them, I don't see it-- not even at 50 or 60. The ones
who lose their curiosity and creativity start declining much earlier than
that.

The problem older programmers face is that the world as-is still defines
engineering as a subordinate role, and people know from experience that it
usually ends badly when an older person has a younger boss. Maybe it
"shouldn't matter" in some PC fiction world, but in the real world we actually
inhabit where people are primates, it matters a lot.

Just as tall women and short men are "diagonalized out" by being contrary to
society's expectations regarding height in coupling-- there are much more
politically incorrect diagonalizations in dating, but I'll side-step them--
young people don't often get to manage (even if they could) and old people are
disqualified for subordinate roles. The business world invented advisory
positions for this purpose (the semi-retired older employee is effectively
non-subordinate, because he doesn't need the job to retain an income, but
isn't a full-time executive). That's how it finds a use for active older
people who are ineligible (often because they just don't want it) for full-
time executive positions but have extremely valuable experience and
relationships. Advisory positions keep skilled older people from being
diagonalized out by the traditional subordination model.

What's needed to fix this problem is for engineering to become closer to an
advisory relationship than a subordinate one. If engineers had the level of
autonomy seen at places like Github and Valve, age wouldn't be nearly as much
of an issue. Right now, people look at a 55-year-old code monkey as a chump--
he's that old and he's _still_ taking orders? But there is absolutely no
reason why a 55-year-old can't program; it's the subordinate context rather
than the work that is the problem.

------
chmike
I'm fifty and full time programmer. What the OP is missing is that while we
have much more experience and are thus wiser on some aspect, our brain is much
less agile to adapt and learn new things. If we would learn faster, we would
also forget faster and loose the power of experience.

Any task where our experience is of value would be satisfying for me to do.
Unfortunately we have all these stupid kids around in our way thinking they
know it all better than us. The worst is the regression of html, xml and
javascript we are forced to use but are shit. All the good thing of "old"
languages are lost.

Note that the languages will change, but the fundamental concepts and
principles remain the same.

~~~
kator
LOL I'm 46 and just got a gig writing in C again and I love it. I stay
current, I am fluent in Python, Perl, PHP, C++, Java, Javascript etc. But it
has been nice returning to a nice warm pile of C code. Now before everyone
piles on to tell me how horrible C is realize this, in our environment we're
handling 500,000 queries per second and have under 100ms to complete a round-
trip transaction. Yes you can attempt that in Java with 20x the servers.
Sometimes you just need good old fashioned low level languages to eek out
every penny of low-latency power from your servers. (I can already hear the
arguments about Elang, Haskel or whatever is popular this week).

@chmike Personally I still learn very rapidly and when I integrate it with
past experience it's very powerful. I make the joke that I'm like a diesel
engine, one crank is equal to 10x the lawn mowers some younger programmers are
using. That said I love learning new stuff from the younger crowd, I'm
convinced they keep me young because they inspire me and I try harder to keep
up while sharing with them the mistakes I've made so they hopefully avoid a
couple of them! :-)

~~~
fossuser
Why C as opposed to C++?

I'd love to know because my current understanding is that C++ has the same
performance as C, but includes the STL which prevents you from having to
reimplement more convenient data structures that handle memory nicely (like
vectors) yourself.

The ability to create classes/objects is nice too and the language doesn't
take away any of the freedom you're given in C either.

Am I missing something about it? Is it just more familiarity with the older
language that makes it more comfortable?

~~~
wglb
For the same code, C++ is generally measurably slower. One reason is how
exceptions, which are not optional, are handled at run time.

Having written some seriously high-throughput low-latency code in C++, you
have to turn on bunches of compile flags (e.g., ignore exceptions) to get the
best out of it.

------
bcambel
A great wisdom: "You don’t match your age to your job. You match your
motivations to your job."[From the article]

~~~
gorbachev
This is exactly why I'm a programmer.

I've been in jobs that I have no motivation for. It's a bad deal for me, and
my employer, but especially for me in terms of opportunity costs.

------
jonjacky
Consider Peter Neumann, who has been hacking since the early 1950s. At age 80,
he is beginning work on the 5-year DARPA-funded Clean Slate project to "build
something new from the bottom up" to respond to security problems. Recent HN
posts link to NY Times stories:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4714328>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4722781>

------
xradionut
Creative programming at times can give me pleasure that's only equaled by a
really good workout or really good sex.

------
arbuge
Probably also keeps the risk of Alzheimer's down - mental stimulation is
believed to have that effect.

[http://www.helpguide.org/elder/alzheimers_prevention_slowing...](http://www.helpguide.org/elder/alzheimers_prevention_slowing_down_treatment.htm)

~~~
tsahyt
Sounds right, yes. Most elderly people I've met who still were mentally fit
have been using their heads their entire life. Obviously this is anecdotal but
I think it's just like a workout for your brain in order to keep in shape,
just as being physically active keeps your body fit.

------
JAYVIX
In my opinion, you have a lot to offer.

1) From a user experience / marketing standpoint - (target demo's have a
better grasp of their own likes and "dislikes" when engaging an application.)
- if one of the targeted demo.

There are "discoveries" that usually happen through conversation. A mature
programmer can provide an entrepreneur perspective or another idea to improve
the product due to the architecture of other programs (built in the past).

2) Depending on the Programmer; the older way of training code revolved around
meticulous detail) - also very helpful sometimes in avoiding bugs.

------
cafard
I am well over 50. It has been a while since I took up a wholly new
programming language, but I keep my hand in with quite a few. I tend to vote
with radicalbyte's friend--being able to choose how much and when to work
would be nice, but getting out of the house and working is definitely a good
thing.

------
hmart
I think it's different for people that started to program at young age
compared with those who started late. Also compare the professional 9to5
developer with the academic, scientific or entrepreneur programmer. Sure I
hope to be programming at fifty because programming isn't my job, it's my joy.

~~~
hmart
for the sake of the discussion : Ask HN: Is 36 too late to start into
programming? <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1444486>

------
orionblastar
I am 44 years old and on disability. I still try to write programs, but I
write small ones. Due to a mental illness and a stroke, my abilities are
limited, and I cannot work a job, but I keep on trying.

