
Babbage's heart-warming message for the middle-aged - jgrahamc
http://blog.jgc.org/2010/10/babbages-heart-warming-message-for.html
======
jakevoytko
I believed that age mattered until I met a super-coder for the first time. He
is over 60 years old, and completes entire projects by himself. A team of five
decent programmers would likely complete these projects late and over budget.
He has high standards, a razor-like focus on implementing The Right Thing, has
a great eye for reusing old code, and isn't afraid to split the world apart to
make life easier for the client. I'm glad I met him as early in my career as I
did; I unlearned a lot of falsehoods about software engineering.

~~~
BrandonM
I think this is where the current attitude towards programmers and how we hire
them is wrong, or at least a little off-base. A lot of people here seem to
look down on someone who just works his ass off and gets the job done unless
that person has a web presence and a github repository. Why would a guy like
this even have a blog? Why would he care about our opinions of him? The
contrast is striking between the blogging, coding-a-personal-project nature of
our generation of programmers and the get-things-done-efficiently-and-go-have-
fun nature of an entirely different generation. Many miss that "completes
entire projects by himself" and "razor-like focus" often preclude many of the
activities we now expect to see in a good programmer. Many think that if a
programmer is not giving something away for free -- likely something that few
will use or read -- then he is just a hamster-wheel cubicle drone.

Your comment reminded me that the reality of the programming world is that
there are countless unsung amazing programmers who have stuck to the same
platform for years, if not decades. They know their IDEs, libraries, and code
bases inside and out. They get an assignment, go into crazy-productive genius-
coder mode, and get a high quality product out the door. And then they go home
and enjoy themselves, and none of us are the wiser. But we sure do appreciate
the reliability of our cell phone networks, our vehicle computer systems, and
countless other amazing pieces of software that we take for granted. Thanks
for reminding us that you can be a great programmer without having a huge
following, programming open source, or even working for a startup. Building
something people want and getting things done are all that matters.

~~~
derefr
When a field is new, its pioneers can be identified easily: they are the ones
who are making the field up as they go along. Thus, there is no need for
status signaling, because the merit of each individual is very clear: the
"alphas" are the Newtons and Shakespeares, having to invent entirely new
notations and words just to explain the things they're working on. This is how
programming was for the previous generation.

When a field matures, and it becomes harder to make true advances on one's
own, we lose our ability to easily evaluate objective merit--so we replace
objective merit cues with subjective status cues. The "alphas" of a mature
field are the ones who signal more, showing that they can afford to waste
effort on useless plumage (little-used FOSS project contributions.)

Of course, once we have adapted to existence in a mature field, we begin to
recognize an overabundance of status cues as "trying too hard," and recognize
that those who have true merit might not be bothering with status cues at all:
thus is born _countersignaling_ , of the kind these "unsung amazing
pogrammers" perform.

------
johngalt
I've never bought into ageism. I've known too many brillant older guys. My
grandfather was an aerospace engineer, and sharp enough to put me to shame
until the day he died.

Overall I'd say its confirmation bias. Think about how many people we
encounter every day that don't have a clue. That ratio doesn't change with
age. Age just becomes a convienient scapegoat.

~~~
MikeCapone
Absolutely. Ageism is terrible.

If we can cure the diseases of aging that affect our mental and physical
performance, we'll hopefully get rid of this sad state of affairs.

It's such a waste that so many incredibly brilliant people are seeing their
mental functions decline because of the accumulation of beta amyloids in their
brains or whatever other problem that happens to be in evolution's blind spot
(humans didn't use to live that old, and rarely reproduced at that age if they
did). A huge waste for humanity.

------
danilocampos
Ageism sucks. At 25, I'm an idiot – I mean, truly a _moron_ by comparison to
some people ten, twenty, thirty years my senior. Not because of what I know,
though that always needs work, but because of how I think. How passion can
funnel into trivialities. How unfortunate events can discourage good ideas,
while optimism can blind me to reality.

Youth can be applied to do great things but it has its disadvantages.

Ageism becomes, unfairly, a proxy for determining something important: The
creative humility of being able to embrace and extend new ideas.

The thing is: Someone in their 20's can just as easily become set in their
ways as someone in their 40's or 60's. Becoming jaded and self-important is
easy. Losing your curiosity is easy – boy, some people lose it by age 10. I
can't stand people who decide they've learned everything there is to know
about the world around them – whether they're 22 or 82.

Especially when selecting people to help you build something, buy into people
with creative insight, curiosity, humility and passion. Those can be found at
any age.

(Fun example: Watch a David Attenborough nature documentary from the BBC. One
where he actually shows up on camera, in the middle of a remote habitat. Watch
how delighted he is, even after decades of study and exposure to what he's
talking about. He doesn't take anything for granted. He and his work are
wonderful.)

------
JabavuAdams
My dad is still programming at 79. Go dad!

~~~
lelele
Please, let us know what he does. Had he worked as a programmer or is he an
hobbyist? Thanks.

~~~
JabavuAdams
He used to be a math teacher. I believe he took some programming courses (as
an adult student), and we had a computer in the basement back in 1978.

I think he's developed a couple of websites for pay. I just remembered that he
worked for a while at the McLuhan centre at University of Toronto.

Now he's mostly working on personal research projects for education.

------
dabent
I've heard there are two kinds of genius, one that blossoms at an early age
and those that develop their craft over time to achieve great things later in
life.

<http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.07/genius.html>

~~~
dctoedt
dabent, you should post the Wired piece separately -- it's worth reading just
for the account of the metrics Galenson used to decide on the "value" of art
produced by artists, poets, etc. at different points in their lives (it was
not just the prices of the different pieces, but their citations in textbooks,
a la Google's PageRank algorithm).

~~~
dabent
I would, but it was submitted less than a month ago here:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1678415>

It really is a good article and worth the read.

------
ivank
Yet another example: Lars Bak wrote V8 in his 40s. There are some details in
"The genius behind Google’s browser"
[http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/03775904-177c-11de-8c9d-0000779fd2...](http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/03775904-177c-11de-8c9d-0000779fd2ac.html)

------
jmspring
I'm actually working on getting my dad up and going on Android development. He
has an app addressing a vertical he is involved with. He's in his early 60s.
Hell, considering when I wanted games growing up, his solution was to give me
the K&R book and told me to write my own. I guess this is the least I can do.

~~~
wtracy
Your dad is awesome.

------
tomlin
It's common to find a 70+ year old electrician or plumber because those trades
have had high demand for generations, ours is still young enough where
stereotypes still have some hold over coming reality.

------
njharman
> where there's currently a cult of youth

I hear that a lot. I've worried about it since mid-eighties when my father
sued US Government for age discrimination. But, I've not see it.

I'm almost 40, not old enough? Maybe I got another decade or two before the
kids kick me off their lawns?

Maybe cult of youth exists more in "corporate"/"enterprise" world? Where
naive, cheap, workaholics are greatly desired and always in supply?

~~~
forensic
I think it's just a holdover in the comp sci biz from the days when COBOL
programmers found their COBOL hacking to be obsolete and chose to retire
rather than retrain

Truth is, old dogs CAN learn new tricks. But it takes more energy than just
repeating their old tricks.

------
zeteo
"Message" implies an actual quote from the man. "Example" would be more
appropriate in this context.

~~~
r7000
Like many words in English it does not have such a discrete meaning.

A story or experience can have a "message" the same way it might have a
"moral". In fact "moral" is often defined as: _the message conveyed by a
story_.

"Example" would have been a poorer word in its place.

~~~
zeteo
Yes, a story can have a message, but "Babbage" is a person, not a story. "This
story's message" has a different agent from "Jim's message". Jim is always the
_author_ in the second meaning.

"Babbage's message" made the title shorter, but also misleading. A complete
title of "Babbage's heart-warming" would have made it even shorter, but I hope
you're not advocating in favor of that!

~~~
r7000
Reflecting today I believe Jim's inspiring message to us is to live life to
the fullest even if that requires participation in extreme sports.

Jim did not write a letter. He was the "author" of the sentiment (according to
the speaker) by the way he lived his life.

------
VladRussian
Babbage's work was a bleeding edge of the science. As far as i know there is
still no "cult of youth" in the areas what are bleeding edge of science today.
Most people are getting to the bleeding egde and starting to produce their
first significant science results only at 30+ . Dismissing 40-50+ year olds at
the top of their scientific work would be just like throwing gold in thrash.

Programming isn't a science (it is barely an engineering) and thus comparison
with Babbage just isn't valid.

------
senthil_rajasek
The title is very misleading.

The article is more like, "What the middle-aged can learn from Babbage's
life".

I give credits for the authors perspective, though.

I am calling this out because I was expecting a reference to an original
article written by Charles Babbage and did not see one.

Imagine if someone wrote an article titled "Einstein's final message to the
world" and you only see a list of life achievements of Albert Einstein from
the authors perspective.

------
dbrannan
One only has to ready Gladwell to realize that becoming a master of any craft
takes time, patience, experience, and lots of practice (10,000+ hours) - none
of which is likely at an early age.

My mentor was 20 years my senior. His ability to read into other people's
code, see potential problems, bottlenecks, and keep our code optimized has
been invaluable.

------
InclinedPlane
I wonder how much age is relevant in software development merely due to the
commonality of awful working environments (which younger workers are more
likely to put up with).

------
SkyMarshal
It is there an actual market opportunity somewhere in this problem of ageism
in tech? You've got all these undervalued veteran hackers, could there be a
way to provide a way for them to pool their abilities, either on a company, or
a freelancing collective or LLC or the like, in order to maximize their full
value?

------
goodgoblin
If there is a preponderance of younger success stories w/r/t age of the
founders of successful internet companies, or the average age of programmers
working for those companies, my bet would be that is due to an increase to
risk aversion as folks get older.

------
da5e
Yes, but Babbage didn't ship.

------
BrandonM
s/programmers by young/programmers be young/

~~~
jgrahamc
Thanks. I've fixed that.

~~~
mst
wrt the pedantry elsethread, might I suggest "Babbage's life's message" as a
better start to the title?

------
konad
And a heart rending message too from Tuesday's Babbage installment
<http://blog.jgc.org/2010/10/babbages-other-woman.html>:

His wife, Georgiana died age 31, Ada Lovelace died aged 36 and Countess Teleki
died a year before Babbage aged 34.

Only three of his _8_ children survived into adulthood.

~~~
jacquesm
Life expectancy back then was quite different than it was today.

------
maushu
Someone is feeling old.

It makes me confused when a old person simple doesn't learn anything new that
could possible help with their life. Heck I've been trying to convince a
family member with the iPad (possible the easiest "computer" to use).

~~~
gschorno
I see most people my age (50) "closing off", they don't want to learn anything
new. I think a lot of it is learned behavior, not wanting to be embarrassed or
made fun of by their peers.

------
hugh3
So Babbage, the guy who is best known for _starting_ work on the first
mechanical computer but dying before completing it, is a heartwarming example?

If he'd started at 20, he would have finished it.

~~~
borisk
From what I've read it seems extremely likely that he did build (in secrecy) a
working computer. One that was used by the British secret service to decrypt
enemy communications.

~~~
kragen
[citation needed]

