
Yes I Still Want to Be Doing This at 56 (2012) - jgrahamc
http://thecodist.com/article/yes_i_still_want_to_be_doing_this_at_56
======
minipci1321
Still love coding (and still going to be doing it at 56, no choice), but
coding at work lost appeal for me -- rat-racing in Agile teams, with every
keystroke accounted for in JIra, and no place for a smallest independent idea
to try.

No wonder there is less and less experienced people on those teams, and the
tech landshaft adapts accordingly -- people just don't know anymore how to
employ experienced developers. Big old companies are not built that way
anymore (am employed by one, multi-national, tried several geos, all the
same), and young companies... you know it all, young folks are just smarter.

Sorry to sound pessimistic (I am not really, for many reasons, one of them
being, I cannnot afford to retire).

Side projects, yes. Becoming wilder and wilder with every year, rarely
reaching the end. Just for staying sane as someone here mentioned.

~~~
m3talsmith
When I was young, I wanted to stay away from the old large companies. When I
crossed the 35 year threshold, they became the only one's I wanted to work
for: every passing year made that desire stronger. Almost 40 now and finally
working for one, I couldn't be happier - I could be making more, but not
happier.

~~~
taternuts
I'm 30 going on 31, and am currently doing that. I recently came from a start-
up gig that worked me until I burned out, then laid off my whole team shortly
after launch. I'm at a medium sized company that still does cool things, but
doesn't force ridiculous deadlines on you and actually seems to care about the
well-being of their employees. Most of the engineers have been there for 2-10
years; I've heard this should be a metric by which you determine your next
position, but I hadn't realized just _how_ important that is until I got
chewed up and spit out by a 'cool' startup.

~~~
m3talsmith
Yeah, I'd say the majority of people I deal with have been there for 5+ years.
The company promotes from within, so a lot of the vets are in some form of
management or research by now. That was one clue that this was the company I
wanted to work for. The other was just how real and truly comfortable everyone
was working there.

------
awjr
46 here, and for me, luckily I guess, I ended contracting from the age of 24
and have been doing that on and off for 22 years. I've been able to move
technologies and really enjoy being right at the coal face. I have run
projects and teams, but the pure pleasure I get from coding has never left me.

I would say my one 'regret' is that I really did not discover hackathons and
even meetups until about 3 years ago. Huge amounts of fun that has really
integrated me into the local developer community.

These days I contract as and when I need to financially, and then take time
off to sprint at ideas as and when family life/finances allow me to. I do feel
I came late to the idea of start-up culture but I never ever feel it is too
late to learn.

------
jv22222
I no longer have an age, I have a version.

I am version 4.8.

I already used that once but I think it's worth a repeat ;)

\---

On another note, this age subject has come up a few times:

Old Geek:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12503458](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12503458)

Programmers: Before you turn 40, get a plan B (2009)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9361580](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9361580)

Silicon Valley’s Dark Secret: It’s All About Age (2010)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9710936](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9710936)

I also wish I could copy paste this comment I already wrote:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9362508](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9362508)

~~~
brudgers
I recommend planning for 4.10, 4.11, etc. rather than introducing breaking
changes.

------
bungie4
56 here as well. Like yourself, I've been doing this for a long, long time. If
it weren't for my personal projects that usually incorporate some pretty wild
ideas or technologies, I think I would've given it up years ago.

Today, with a head cold, trying to get caught up on the 400 emails I have
because I took yesterday off. The idea of selling ice cream at the beach
sounds like a kick-ass career move.

~~~
overcast
36 and personal/side projects are the only thing that keep my sanity.
Hopefully one or some become enough to move on, because I can't work for
someone ever again.

------
to3m
A contrary view: [http://thecodist.com/article/my-biggest-regret-as-a-
programm...](http://thecodist.com/article/my-biggest-regret-as-a-programmer)

~~~
ra88it
Is this the same writer?

~~~
strictnein
Wait... yeah, isn't it? That makes the 2012 post have a very different
feeling, after reading this.

~~~
mythrwy
A bit.

Sounds like he still enjoyed programming but was kicking himself about all the
money he missed out on by leaving the Bay area and quitting Apple in 94.

------
mckoss
Wow. Based on the number of responses here, we should start a club - "56 and
still doing it".

Those of us born around 1960 came of age during the earliest days of personal
computing. I guess a lot of us got hooked and are still at it!

~~~
Jun8
An older coders club is an _excellent_ idea, I'm in. Looking at the discussion
for this and some other HN threads there's definitely interest, but this a
horribly served segment, I think. Most material (blogs, videos, etc.) are done
by and target the younger coders.

~~~
henrik_w
OLd Geek Jobs [1] was popular here recently [2].

[1] [https://oldgeekjobs.com/](https://oldgeekjobs.com/)

[2]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12506232](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12506232)

------
mattgreenrocks
I like programming a lot, and am pretty good at it.

What I dislike is the fact that it feels very tough to break into demanding
programming jobs without Ivy League credentials. I certainly have the
experience, and I've done some badass stuff, but, yeah.

Any advice is welcome. I am 35 and trying to work to avoid being dead-ended as
a replaceable dev. Really interested in PL implementations and empowering devs
to do more.

~~~
CoolGuySteve
More annoyingly, it's tough because you're expected to answer whiteboard
algorithm questions that closely mimic CS course exam questions but have very
little to do with real world programming.

So that stuff you've been doing all day every day for the past 15 years is
useless, you have to study for these interviews on your own time. Companies
will even send you little study guides with references and strategies for
practicing.

Essentially and as far as Google/Facebook/etc are concerned, your experience
is worthless and any fresh grad can plug into your role like a cog. Or at
least that's what's implied by their selection criteria.

~~~
markatto
For what it's worth, I currently work at one of the aforementioned software
companies and my college experience is half a music degree. I didn't do any
intense studying for the interview either, just spent a couple evenings doing
project Euler problems in my favorite language to brush up as my job at the
time was using different languages and didn't involve a lot of programming.
I'm on the SRE/PE side of the world though, where I think interviews tend to
line up with practical experience a little better.

------
GrumpyNl
56 here to, still love doing what im doing. For the younger ones, one advice.
Keep it simple.

~~~
toomuchtodo
As someone who is mid 30s, ageism in the industry concerns me.

What have you observations been regarding your age when interviewing? Have you
run into ageism?

~~~
luckydude
I'm a little out of the current state of the art in programming (retired
early). That said, I strongly suspect that little has changed in terms of what
a _good_ programmer is worth. I stress "good". Good programmers are rare and I
suspect will always be in demand. And age doesn't make you not good.

Just as a for instance (statistically valid sampling of one :), I had a guy
working with me, Rick Smith, who is older than I am (I'm 55) and he is one of
the most productive programmers I've ever met. Just amazing what he can get
done, I really don't understand how he does it, I'm nowhere near that good.
But he's as good as I was at my best so I think it is possible to be old and
good.

But it is a lot harder than being young and good. I used to be able to pour
myself a glass of wine in the evening, sit down, and hammer out a couple of
really good commits. These days not so much. Forget the wine, it's rare that I
have the juice to do anything useful, those really good coding days are not
something I can just switch on like I used to. They come to me when they want
and I have to grab 'em and ride them as far as I can because it will be a
month or more before I get another one. I'm talking about those really
productive coding sessions where you have all the state in your head, you see
the code, you see the docs, you see the test cases, you see how it all fits
together and you are just typing it in as fast as you can. Don't get those
like I used to.

My Dad once told me that you are basically done doing anything significant by
the time you are 35 (he was high energy theoretical nuclear physics). I've
certainly proved him wrong, I did plenty of work that I'm proud of in my 40's,
but 50's? Hmm, not so much. It gets hard.

Sorry to be a downer, I guess. If I were to offer up any hope I'd say stay as
fit as you can. Healthy body, healthy mind and all that.

~~~
Danihan
You sure you just don't need TRT? Hormone levels get worky by your 50's

~~~
luckydude
I have no idea. My bits and pieces all seem to still work (not that anyone
wants them) if that's any indication.

And I stay busy, just with other stuff like this:

[http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/03/17/mountain-vigilantes-
ta...](http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/03/17/mountain-vigilantes-tackle-
plague-of-potholes/)

Yeah, don't get me started on how my county (doesn't) maintain[s] roads. It's
depressing and it's not just here.

But I'll ask my doctor if TRT is right for me. I actually will though I sound
like a crappy TV ad.

~~~
pugworthy
You sound like you've got potential to be a burner ;)

~~~
luckydude
Sorry to be so old, but what's a burner? Pot smoker? If so, I've never found
pot and programming to mix, for me. Might work for other people, I still
remember being stoned at a terminal hooked to a VAX 780 runing 4.3BSD. It's
when I learned what the hjkl keys did in vi (I used arrow keys, shoot me). A
wasted hour or two of looking down, hitting the j key, looking up, thinking
"did it move? I'm not sure, lemme try again".

Not my best work :)

Or burnt out? Maybe, I dunno.

So what's a burner?

~~~
toomuchtodo
I believe pugworthy meant something like this:

[http://journal.burningman.org/2008/06/opinion/serious-
stuff/...](http://journal.burningman.org/2008/06/opinion/serious-stuff/what-
is-a-burner-anyway/)

"Still, the majority consensus appears to be something more broadly defined;
it seems like maybe being a Burner is not about where you’ve been, or what
you’ve attended, but what you do, and how you live."

~~~
pugworthy
Correct, thanks.

~~~
luckydude
Huh, well reading the link, if you think I'm a burner, that's a compliment in
my book. Thanks!

I credit my youth in Wisconsin with giving me a desire to help other people.
You pretty much have to have that attitude in the winter, everyone is helping
push each other out of the snowbanks. It was just sort of what you did, I
didn't think about it until I moved to California and found that it was less
common out here. Much more common in the Santa Cruz mountains, which is part
of why I live there.

------
markbnj
I'm 56, still doing software and systems engineering every day, still love it.
My daily routine is a lot like the author's. I've thought off and on over the
years about doing something else, but the simple fact is I'm addicted to that
rush I get when we solve a problem and see it work for the first time.

------
randcraw
I'm the same age as the author and have been coding since 1986. I still enjoy
the immersive (flow) aspect of coding, but I'm no longer compelled to code in
my off hours. In fact, about 25 years ago I realized that coding alone
couldn't keep me enraptured indefinitely. So I diversified into R&D: AI & data
mining, HPC, image processing, and recently deep learning.

I hope to remain in harness for another decade, probably in some sort of AI
role, which seems plausible since the demand in that space for skill +
experience far outstrips supply, and I'm willing to move.

------
darreld
I'm still loving it at 60. I'm actually looking forward to being able to
change jobs in the next year, but I am realistic about how difficult it will
be.

------
Mankhool
I just turned 54 and started learning to code at 53. Okay, learning to code
_again_ because I haven't done anything since 1985 and FORTRAN77.

It's interesting because my employer (a multinational telco HQ'd in Canada) is
keen to give me real work coding as soon as I want it. So with that, and my
real purpose (building my next application myself) I'm really engaged and
having a lot of fun.

------
uxcolumbo
A question for programmers in their 30s wanting to still be doing this in
their 50s and 60s...

Are you worried about the advancement in AI, i.e. programs writing other
programs... will there still be enough programming jobs in 20 years for
humans?

Ps I'm only a prototyper, I don't create production ready code, hence the
slightly naive question.

~~~
karllager
No, not worried about that, particularly. But there are few other options,
that might be worrying to some:

The routine tasks will more and more go away. Still amazed how much is done by
hand today (like research, data preparation, communication, marketing,
business to business processes, scheduling, HR).

Just as with every profession over the past decades, if you want to stay
employable, you will have to level up your game significantly because the
simple software stuff (of which there is a huge amounts today) will go away,
let's say in the next ten years.

In 2030 software related employment will look more like in the 1960s. A highly
selected and highly self selective group of borderline asperger guys having a
blast thinking, proving theorems, playing piano and writing code.

Why I believe that? Because we see the 80-20 rule play out in so many fields.
And in 2030 the leverage you get from technology will just a tad more intense
that in is today.

------
lacampbell
One thing to remember is that the US has places with much higher salaries and
a lot lower land costs than the rest of the world.

In NZ, the median house price is 5 times the annual salary of a senior dev. In
our largest city, it's 8 times that. So the romantic idea of staying close to
the tech and coding forever and not becoming a suit for me is really just that
- a romantic idea. I want to own a decent house and support myself during
retirement.

So forget 56. I don't want to be doing this when I'm 35.

~~~
eliben
> In NZ, the median house price is 5 times the annual salary of a senior dev.
> In our largest city, it's 8 times that

Depends on what you mean by "senior", but that's not very far from the
situation in the Bay Area

~~~
lacampbell
Right, but that's one area in a huge country. 5 times is the median across my
entire country, most of which is provincial and rural, and which only has a
single city over 1 million.

~~~
eliben
Well, this "one area" has significantly larger population than the whole of
NZ, but I take your point. I think you're trying to point out the low salaries
of SW developers, because I find it hard to imagine homes in non-central areas
are very expensive?

P.S. I <3 NZ

~~~
lacampbell
No, it's much more a case of over-priced homes [1] than under priced
developers. Even homes in non-central areas are very expensive - not to
mention of a very low standard

Here's [2] an insulated house with no central heating and single glazed
windows in a town of 20k people going for $125,000 USD. No real employment
opportunities unless you work for local government or commute 50km. No Lord of
the Rings style vistas in the Horowhenua either, it's drained swamp.

[1] [http://www.newshub.co.nz/home/money/2017/03/new-zealand-
hous...](http://www.newshub.co.nz/home/money/2017/03/new-zealand-housing-most-
unaffordable-in-the-world-the-economist.html)

[2] [http://www.realestate.co.nz/3036902](http://www.realestate.co.nz/3036902)

------
atirip
51, dont wont to do anything else. Working in a startup, coworkers are half my
age. Having fun.

~~~
mythrwy
Ya, but don't all the GIF memes on Slack annoy you just a bit? :)

------
wwweston
> If you want to be a programmer at 55 still you can't ever lose the hunger to
> know more, know better and know simpler. Once you lose that edge the
> technology steamroller keeps on coming closer and closer until you wind up
> flat doing something else for a living.

Steamroller is an interesting metaphor. Treadmill is a little more common,
thinking about the difference is potentially instructive.

Having observed some points between 20something and 55 (if still a good ways
off from the latter end), one of the things I've noticed is that I'm no less
hungry to know more. I'm possible _more_ hungry -- as my knowledge has grown,
I've realized how much _more_ there is that I don't know. But I'm also far
more picky and concerned about ROI. I have less patience for learning to keep
up with churn; if it's at all possible, I prefer to _reserve new learning for
new capabilities_ rather than learning a new way of doing the same thing.
Unless it clearly _is_ better and simpler (but if that were so clear, why the
proliferation of solutions?)...

------
kamaal
I want to be a programmer or at least be building important stuff at 56. I
just don't want my sustenance to depend on it.

There is crazy ageism in this industry. And I don't want to fighting pointless
battles, while you could be spending time in peace doing a lot of other work.

------
nunez
Frankly, I can't agree with the author here, at least not professionally.

I want to be running an engineering org or company by 40. I enjoy coding and
architecting, but I get much more enjoyment out of helping people get to where
they want to go in their careers. I also enjoy the idea of directly helping
businesses make more money/reach bigger markets and collecting much bigger
paychecks (supposedly) and or bonuses as a result.

I do enjoy coding, though, so I would like to keep doing that during whatever
spare time I can find. Though between living life on weekends and career
efforts after hours during the weekdays, this will likely be difficult to do
(as it already is).

~~~
jimbokun
"but I get much more enjoyment out of helping people get to where they want to
go in their careers. I also enjoy the idea of directly helping businesses make
more money/reach bigger markets"

Yeah, you don't sound like someone who will be happiest if you stick to
coding. A lot of us code precisely because we don't feel comfortable or
confident with the skills you mention.

------
julian55
I'm 61 and still coding. Although I am winding down, only working 4 days a
week now.

------
hehheh
I'm late 30something and I do not want to be writing code any more. I'm burnt
out, thanks to being an Android developer. (Don't do it!)

I'm not sure what I'll do instead. I've been reading a bunch of stuff folks
have written about the subject, but most people are focused on going in to
management or QA or whatever. I think I'd just like "out". My brain ain't what
it used to be and I'd rather quit than be fired, if you get my meaning.

I don't have an answer yet. I half-joke about becoming an Amazon Flex driver.

~~~
jventura
> I'm burnt out, thanks to being an Android developer. (Don't do it!)

Curious by your answer: something about bad apis on Android, or you got burned
by deadlines or boring work?

~~~
hehheh
Whoa sorry about my super late reply here.

The APIs are not great. Some of it is down to poor naming, for example:

The callback you'd use on a CheckBox is called
`OnCheckedChangeListener.onCheckedChanged(view, boolean)` (or something) but
it is called whether or not the check state actually changed (e.g. if you call
`setChecked(true)` and it's already checked you'll get the callback anyway).
This is an issue that plagues the APIs in other places like
`OnLayoutChangeListener` and `TextWatcher.OnTextChanged`

The fragment lifecycle is incredibly complex to the point that many people
advocate against using it -- I'm one of them. It's like someone decided to try
to solve every problem ever without asking the real users (devs) what they
thought was wrong.

But the worst thing about it, bar none, is just how long it takes to build and
run an app. We're talking 1.5-2 minutes. Everyone has their pet idea for
reducing the build/test cycle but they provide marginal benefits at best and
don't offer up concrete examples with concrete data (e.g. "I am running this
gradle command for this github project on this computer and am measuring it
this way, and here are my results"). I've spent weeks of time, scattered over
the years, trying to figure out a way to reduce this to something more
reasonable like 5 seconds, but to no avail.

My best guess is that other people are working on tiny toy apps or are just
building the default project and then proclaiming that I must be mistaken, I
must be doing something wrong for my build (of a reasonable sized app) to be
as slow as it is.

------
Not31337
Fifty Eight and reading and retaining more IT tech news than the Students in
the classes I teach. I am 1/3 programmer and 2/3 sysadmin, overlay by manager
and trainer. It the variety that has kept me going. After 3 to 7 years I want
to toss out the things I working on and move on. Always planing for the next
cycle. Studying up for a couple of Cert by the end of the year because I am
getting that itchy feeling.

------
MaggieL
I was still doing it at 56...eight years ago.

~~~
ido
Are you now too?

------
fgandiya
Didn't he write an article about how his biggest regret is not going into the
management route?

~~~
justboxing
Correct. 4 years after this 2012 article, he wrote this [2016] =>
[http://thecodist.com/article/my-biggest-regret-as-a-
programm...](http://thecodist.com/article/my-biggest-regret-as-a-programmer)

He laments how he quit Apple when it was going down, then Steve Jobs came
along few months later and the rest is history. Also how his Sister went the
management route and has 10x Assets etc. I wish I hadn't found this 2016
article because that makes me read this OP 2012 article in a whole new light.
And it's not very encouraging... :(

------
Raphmedia
I chose this career exactly because I wanted to have a career I could work in
up to my 50s or 60s.

------
simonboulton
63 here. Still doin' it...

------
draw_down
I'm 35, I wish I could relate. The technology is not the problem, of course.

------
mistermumble
64 and still coding, although not full-time.

8 years ago I learned Objective-C and physics engines and published a number
of mobile apps for IOS.

Nowadays I am learning Go, Solidity & Viper and writing blockchain-based
dapps. Big fun.

------
Insanity
Used to keep quite well up to date with reading this blog some years ago,
thank you for bringing it back to my attention!

------
jlebrech
at 56 i'll be a robot's assistant.

------
dwarman
69 now. still working. big(gish) co so good insurance, would not have it on my
own. Embedded systems.

------
magoghm
I'm 56 and I hope I will still be coding for many more years.

------
irrational
Yes I Still Want to be Doing This at 65.

------
DoodleBuggy
With age discrimination, will a 56 year old still be employed? Perhaps as a
manager.

------
billforsternz
I am 56 and still love programming. I had a wake-up call recently about
whether the programming world still loves me however. I am looking for a new
challenge and saw an opening for a "C++ cross platform dev" at an interesting
(sports stats and league management) startup just down the road from my house.
I love sport, love stats and I've been hobby coding a successful C++ chess GUI
for years (plus tons of professional C++ experience). Submitted an application
through an annoying SaaS job application site. When the submission completed
the automated message from the CTO was "thanks we'll get in touch if your
experience matches our needs". I had a strange premonition. "I am never going
to hear from these guys". Two weeks later, after hearing nothing I thought I'd
try something else. After spending an hour to eventually successfully find out
the CTO's email (it's one of these cool new companies that makes direct
contact more or less impossible) I sent the following email;

Subject: Can I Buy you a Coffee? To: $Name, CTO $Company

Hi $Name,

I am an experienced programmer looking for interesting challenges. $Company is
exactly the kind of company I'd like to help out next. I love the idea of
taking on the world from $NiceSuburbWhereBothMeAndCompanyLive. I could send
you a CV but I don't think that's the best way of us finding out if there is a
real opportunity for me to help you. Basically I have heaps of experience in a
bunch of important technologies, but much more importantly I am capable of
learning new languages and technologies quickly. For example, at the moment I
am teaching myself Rust, just for the hell of it, and because I think it is
cool and exciting and has a future. I am not a paint by numbers developer.
Copying and pasting snippets from Stackoverflow without understanding is not
my thing. Deep level understanding and sound software engineering is my thing.

I'd love a chance to show you what I can do, and I would definitely consider
doing so on an unpaid basis, at least initially. I've had some significant
success in my career and these days I don't have to work to make a living. For
this reason I could be the ultimately flexible "resource" \- for example it's
possible I could help out on an occasional basis, without requiring inflated
contractors' rates.

Basically I am offering something a little bit "out of the box". I don't think
either of us has much to lose by having that coffee and opening our minds to
the possibilities.

Cheers,

Bill.

I must admit this time I did expect a reply, but no luck this time either.
What kind of person would just ignore something like that? I think it might be
a generational thing - just ignore emails if you don't want to answer them.
They're still advertising that C++ job too. It took me a while to realise that
these days cross platform C++ probably means iOS and Android - not Windows,
Mac and Linux any more. Still you get a certain amount of experience and you
realise there's very little really new under the sun and you can adapt your
experience and understanding and learn anything "new" quickly if you need to.
End of my bitter rant.

~~~
billforsternz
For the record, a chance meeting led to this company actually giving me a fair
chance. The lesson - emails and web submissions are easily lost in the chaos
of daily business and a personal contact in meatspace trumps electronic
"reaching out" every time.

------
battlebot
43 here. You might think you still want to be coding into your 50s, but I am
here to warn you that the matter is highly subjective. I'm noticing that each
subsequent job search after 40 is a little tougher and rejections are for
silly reasons now (because you're old isn't ever one of them). The laws won't
protect you, so forget about that.

No matter what you think, you won't be as employable in your 40s and 50s as
you were in your 20s--being young in the tech industry means you can be
exploited and exploitation is the #1 factor. They know young people will work
a ton of extra hours for no extra pay to gain experience, to try and prove
themselves, or whatever.

I recently talked to a colleague who is 62 and still coding. He is worried
about the next seven years as he is not ready to retire (not financially
ready, that is). His department is going through downsizing and he is trying
to position himself in another area that isn't likely to drop people. He
rightly realizes that finding a new developer job at 62 will be next to
impossible. It's all a big chess game after 40 so be prepared.

Unlike the codist, I'm sure I don't want to be doing this work after 50. I
have a plan for getting out. This year, because of a family obligation, I took
some months off. During that time, I did a trial run of how to 'retire' from
software development. There were quite a few surprises for me and it didn't
look like I had expected. Finding an alternative career after 20+ years as a
developer is do-able: There are roles that require attention to detail and
analytical skills, but that don't require coding, for example.

I won't go into detail, but I will say I rejected downshifting to a non-
developer role even though I had a couple offers at 80-90% of what I was
pulling down as a developer. Instead, I'm headed back to doing development for
another 5-7 years, but with more knowledge about how to proceed in later
years. I want to retire around age 50 and am working on having the passive
income to do so. I may need to work part-time in odd jobs as well, but I
predict I won't be a developer in my 50s.

If you're older, you had better understand that the next downturn could very
likely take your job and getting another one will be hard. For all the happy
talk about how great the job market is and how age doesn't matter, I beg to
differ. That "great" can change insanely quickly. There is more competition in
our field than ever before and the only thing that creates job security for us
is being able to actually write code and get crap done and even that is of
thin value because companies don't care: they see us as another commodity. To
management, it doesn't hardly matter how good a coder you are, companies are
happy to accept fungible, mediocre people as long as the systems sort of work.

The last thing I will leave you with is that you don't know how long you're
going to live. If you have any ambition to do anything in life besides work,
you need to get going on those plans right now. Dropping dead from a sudden
heart attack or stroke does happen to a lot of people.

~~~
defined
Some of us, for financial reasons (like emigration, bad luck, divorce, child
support, or all the aforementioned) will be coding until we drop dead or get
kicked out and can't get work.

Trust me, most of us in this situation are probably acutely and painfully
aware of the nightmare scenario, but we've got the tiger by the tail and can't
realistically let go. Such is life.

