I turn 70 tomorrow, and have been programming for about 53 years. Started a new job about six months ago. I immensely enjoy banging out the code every day. It still feels like a guilty pleasure! "Shouldn't I be doing homework right now rather than creating 3-D worlds algorithmically?" My first language was APL, which I learned in a college computer science course. This hard-wired me to think in functional terms; I personally think Iverson and Dijkstra were saying the same thing, but Iverson said it better: reason about your code from an "outside of time" perspective rather than mentally imitating the fetch-execute cycle of the machine. I view software development as a form of discrete mathematics; inductive reasoning for sequential blocks of code, Pnueli-style temporal logic for concurrent and parallel code. I've learned from some wonderful people how powerful it can be when a team likes each other and gets into a collective flow state. It is a bit like a mental version of quantum entanglement, and it is a very satisfying and meaningful thing when you get there. I've benefited from friends who helped me get that next job, and I've helped friends get their next jobs. About 20 years ago I made a switch to medical device software development. That is a domain that requires dedication to learn relevant mathematics, it is not going to go away, and you become a valued commodity when you have specialized skills and a talent pool that is not too large. And, you get to do things like visit your grandchildren in a NICU and see neonatal ventilators that you helped develop. So, I've been lucky, being able to play all day and do something I love! There are a million different paths through the space of software development; I've tended to traverse the space using the "what would be fun to goof around with on a Saturday" metric.
