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Being a Developer After 40

854 points by wallflower 11y ago

deleted 11y ago
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guessbest 11y ago
I remember the AVR hype. It was supposed to "change everything" but is became a big nothing burger.
TerryADavis 11y ago
I wrote a HolyC compiler and an x86_64 assembler. It does a little bit of 16-bit, but noone needs it because it is juts used during boot and you have no business. My 64-bit assembly is missing all the MMX SSE stuff at the moment. I don't really care for those.
edwardmarriner 11y ago
Thanks for this! A super interesting and well written look into what a career in software development can look like!
ry_ry 11y ago
Warm fuzzy nostalgia aside, this article seems to amount to "Learn everything, read everything, do everything, don't bandwagon, Apple is pretty cool. The other stuff is OK too, if you like that sort of thing. Learn Node. PS. Don't harrass people". It's an amalgamation of every Medium tech-post ever.
- ramblerman 11y ago
  Yet, your sarcastic summary is a breath of fresh air in the HN comments...
  - smhg 11y ago
    I wouldn't call it sarcasm. I had the same feeling while reading. The OP contains a lot of opinions about a lot of different subjects. An amalgamation.
    - eggy 11y ago
      I don't think amalgamation means what you think it means (obligatory reference to 'The Princess Bride' ;)). And if you mean by amalgamating that he united or tied together a lot of different opinions on a lot of different things, how is that unpleasant?
- greenspot 11y ago
  > It's an amalgamation of every Medium tech-post ever. Very well summarized. While I enjoyed this post somehow, maybe because I was thinking of the good old times, I didn't feel comfortable reading: I found his views having a touch of an ubiquitous negativity and slight frustration. I disagree with many of his points. And I miss one clear message.
- RyanZAG 11y ago
  I guess the real message is: believe whatever the mainstream audience believes at the time. You can't really go wrong with always agreeing with whatever the current thought bubble agrees with - and be quick to change your opinions if the herd is moving. When the author saw the derision against Steve Ballmer, and the favor Apple was getting, he made the clear choice to jump ship. And because he was part of that popular herd jumping ship, it worked very well. Follow the wind. It's actually a pretty good point and is a decent way to always remain relevant. You can't be left behind if you're always on top of the latest thought trends. EDIT: A missing piece the author points out too: don't be an early adopter of a thought trend (Point 1: Forget the hype). Only jump in when it becomes mainstream. If you adopt something before it becomes mainstream, there's a chance it can fail. If you wait until it is mainstream, but get in just as it becomes mainstream, you get the benefit of being an early adopter and the benefit of never being on the unpopular viewpoint.
  - spacecowboy_lon 11y ago
    So your always going to be playing catch up - back in 94 when i had been playing with the www I volunteered to go to Edinburgh for a month to work on a cutting edge RAD/DSDM Project. Basically I told my then boss see you after Christmas - If I have followed that advice I would have stuck with Oracle and Java or spent my career in Mainframes
    - wodenokoto 11y ago
      > I would have stuck with Oracle and Java or spent my career in Mainframes And last I heard, there are tons of job openings asking for experts in Oracle and Java. So how exactly would that have been terrible in terms of getting a steady income?
      - spacecowboy_lon 11y ago
        Well enough if you want a traditional 9-5 job (which is fine if it suits you) - pity Java is such a PITA to work with though and Oracle do charge a lot! for there product. Trouble is if your company pivots and you have been doing Mainframe COBOL for 20 years - you might find transitioning to a new language hard.
- koder2016 11y ago
  He is talking about daring bets on technologies with a potential. Then insists you learn Node.js. If anything my bet is that JS is not worth learning at all because future is all about WebAssembly (and LLVM effectively - he is right about that).
x5n1 11y ago
Seems a bit bitter about the shit working conditions. And he's right. It's funny how the whole trade is shit.
- tudorw 11y ago
  There certainly seems to be a lot of young 'genius' and '*10' types who are willing to sacrifice their youth on the altar of a unicorn in return for a 1 in 100 chance of getting rich, if it's taking you more than 8 hours a day to make a living, you're poor :(
  - x5n1 11y ago
    Even if the unicorns win it really depends on where you entered for you to actually make out rich. These days even the employees of the winner are getting shafted. There seems to be no ideas of human dignity or work life balance in this trade. It's not a profession, it's a trade. It should probably be unionized, and it would be if not for the high wage.
  - naivepiano 11y ago
    Well said.
isxek 11y ago
Slightly disappointed about the post not being about how they became a developer at age 40, which was what I initially thought it was. I started my career as a software developer at precisely 10am, on Monday October 6th, 1997... I had recently celebrated my 24th birthday.
- eggy 11y ago
  I initially drew the same conclusion, but was nonetheless entertained by it.
groundCode 11y ago
This was a good read - I'm a dev over 40 and much of this rang true. I think there's a lot of great advice in there. One standout for me was "Be prepared to change your mind at any time through learning. " - something that I think we should all aspire to.
febed 11y ago
I have seen developers threatened to have their work visas not renewed if they did not work faster That was an eye-opener. For some reason I thought Switzerland was a worker's utopia with the relatively higher salaries.
- ramblerman 11y ago
  I had the same initial reaction but if you think it through not having your visa renewed effectively comes down to being fired, i.e. the company terminating their dealings with you. Doesn't make it better (at all), but it's essentially just the threat of firing albeit with more weight behind it for the visa workers. Not the company calling the visa office about you or holding on to your passport, etc...
  - Create 11y ago
    I have seen people threatened to have their work visas not renewed in Sweden.
    - bbv-if 11y ago
      Well, this risk is the price you have pay to work in a better country. And anyway, most probably they would have some time (in my case, up to 45 days) after the contract termination to find a new job, so it's not that tragic.
- bbv-if 11y ago
  Not for Gastarbeiter. You're supposed to work, pay all taxes and GTFO before you can legally claim any benefits, while still being despised by unemployed locals for "stealing" their jobs.
- african_cheetah 11y ago
  It's not so different in the US either. My previous manager has indirectly referenced delaying my green card process if I didn't deliver on time.
- NormlOverrated 11y ago
jbb555 11y ago
Most of this seems very negative.
tluyben2 11y ago
I'm 41 and a dev (and manager and bunch of other roles when needed, but most my days are spent with software/hardware dev) and sure, it's all true what this article says, but there is no real personal advice there besides, as others said, just 'don't do everything, but do everything'. So some unasked advice from a 40+ then which I wish I was told when I was 17 or something: a) believe in yourself; learn from others, but if you have strong opinions or think something is wrong then voice it even though others (are supposed to) have more experience b) fast typing and making long hours are irrelevant c) get out there and mingle with non coders a lot. All of these 3 points (I learned them at different stages, in order of appearance above; c I only started doing 3 years ago) made me never having to need a job as such, always worked where/when I wanted, always made enough money and usually have enough spare time to do whatever while still performing.
- soft_dev_person 11y ago
  It may be obvious (i.e. general networking effects), but what dynamic let c) give you work and freedom? Please elaborate. As a coder who really dread interacting with people (especially non-technical people) in the context of work, I'd like to know how this advice would change my life.
  - niels_olson 11y ago
    There's a lot of money out there that code hasn't touched yet. Biological sciences in particular are remarkably stuck in the 20th century. Don't talk to them about bioinformatics. Listen to the things they're doing. As though you were 12. And just ask questions.
  - ricksplat 11y ago
    I can't emphasise enough how important (c) is. Personally, I find programming to be emotionally challenging in that you have to put emotion, and your own thoughts aside when cutting your code. Add in to the mix the social dynamic of the workplace and the emotional workload doubles. I always had a feeling this was important. I remember reading about NEDs (New Economy Depression syndrome) and identifying with that, but it wasn't until I went and did a diploma in psychology that the rationality behind it all crystalised. Across all fields that study wellbeing it's fairly conclusive that social support is one of the most powerful mediating factors. In summary the more friends you have the happier and healthier you will be. How does this relate to "non technical people"? As a friend once said to me once, when I was going through a particularly kafkaesque work episode, "you need to get outside of your head". You need to engage with people on a plane other than the one you work upon every day - to give those parts of your brain a rest and to help you to develop others. People are hard though. In many ways more difficult than computers but the key thing to remember is that unlike with computers there isn't a right or wrong thing to do at all times. People have empathy, they can be sympathetic, they can meet you half way and they can help you to figure out what you're thinking. Start off with something small, where you don't have to have too many interactions, but where you can be around people. I don't know why but for some reason communal drumming classes comes to mind. The key is to be around people where they will get to know your face and you theirs.
ricksplat 11y ago
In 1997 I was finishing high school, and about to commence undergraduate studies. I was "interested" in computing and Linux had passed 2.0 and was well on its way to entering the main stream. I remember obtaining a copy of redhat from my local library and a few very significant threads of my career to date commenced. Java is also a child of the nineties and 1.1 I believe was the first arguably "finished" implementation. I remember the computer magazines were going off on about it at the time and I got a free Java IDE off a cover disk and wrote my first 2D canvas app. These were the two main "galaxies" I inhabited for the last 20 years with various holidays here and there. The benefit of inhabiting such relatively "open" galaxies is that they provide easily accessible conduits to other galaxies too. Thanks for the 90s nostalgia - very nearly brought a tear to my eye.
salex89 11y ago
If it is really possible to learn one language each year, and read six books, I'm going to be very impressed with that. Especially considering side projects you actually start in some language, frameworks (which are not the same as languages, obviously), and conceptual things which are language-agnostic. And then comes family, home maintenance and, just sometimes, rest :-) .
- unusximmortalis 11y ago
  I had the same thought... maybe I am doing something wrong :) I will reflect on that
- spacecowboy_lon 11y ago
  Why not? i learnt PL/1G in a week and was productive by the end of the second week. I can easily go thorough 6 books in a month one of the advantages of commuting by train.
- jonstewart 11y ago
  I think it's possible to gain substantive exposure to one new programming language a year, to kick the tires and gain insight into some of the features and idioms that make it tick. However, I don't think it's really possible to become an expert in one new language per year. I think it is much more realistic to master one new language every 3–7 years (depending on the language). Playing with one new language per year might help one figure out which new language to master.
- overcast 11y ago
  Reading six books a year is really nothing, and I'm not even sure why the author makes a big deal about it. Especially those books he suggested, are very short, often lots of pictures and examples. Agreed on the new language though, your best course is to just start a fresh project with something new. That's how I learn new things. Just jump in head first.
shipintbrief 11y ago
Mentioning income gap at the end were very random. I wish author would mention it in the beginning, so I wouldn't waste time reading the whole thing.
eggy 11y ago
I liked the post, and empathized with some truths in it. I saved up and bought a used Commodore PET in 1977 at age 13. I taught myself assembler, c, basic, and went on to buy a Vic-20, C-64, Amiga 1000, Amiga 500, Mac PowerPC, NCR 3125 (386 pen-based tablet in 1995 or 1996!), and then read up on AI in the 1980s - Neural Networks, GAs, GP, Expert systems, Fuzzy Systems, Chaos, Complexity, etc... I was using Minix on my Amiga before Linux on my PowerPC, and I have dual-booted since, but Windows is also in my repertoire. THEN, I gave it all up and became a welder at an animatronics company that made window displays, stayed in the entertainment field designing stage machinery, special effects, and so on. My last job was at a water show diving and fixing hydraulic and electrical systems as a senior manager and show manager (not in the US, since a senior manager would not be caught dead in the water!). I have now aged 51 years 11 months, getting heavily back into neural nets, livecoding graphics and music while living in East Java, Indonesia. I was born and raised in Brooklyn, NY as a contrast. All I can say, and what I bestow on my older two children (I just fathered a baby girl a year ago), is that I left the fast track to the huge salary to do what I wanted, and that always kept me happy, and busy in a good way. I read books until I don't understand them, and then go back and forth to others until I do, and I stayed physical, and avoided 'desk job' ailments of most people my age. I have grown to know it is time, time with family and friends that money buys you. And if you have food, a roof over your head and some toys, you don't need the other $25K to $100K per year, or what have you. No, there is nothing new under the sun, but I have miles to go before I sleep...
- neotrinity 11y ago
  I have miles to go before I sleep.. I like the reference to Stopping by woods on a snowy evening.. Great to see u made yourself a good life in east java. My grandpa lived in Solo and my dad in Jakarta. I tried so much to move there. But couldnt make it. I am still stuck at the hamsters wheel in London. Hopefully i can get a fully remote job and then move to Indonesia. I can only dream ! /dream
  - eggy 11y ago
    The Robert Frost reference I played because I always feel like I can keep learning som much more, do so much more, as I think he tries to convey in his article. And I played it off the English translation of his Latin quote, 'Nil nove sul sole' ('Nothing new under the sun') to convey that too. You're never stuck; it's in your head. I grew up poor in Brooklyn, and I have taken lower paying jobs after higher paying ones for the experience and fun of it. You learn to live within your means. You don't need a remote job to move to Indonesia. I live on very little here. I spend more on luxuries like books and credit for Internet. I am far from any big stores or town, so the temptation to just spend is gone too. I am sure you can manage to save $10K USD in a year. I am spending the time studying, exercising, sleeping (I have slept an average of 6 hours or less per night for the past 30 years or so, and now I try and get 8 to 9 hours, sometimes more!). The old cliche 'Life is short' rings more loudly as you get older, and peers start dying around you. In our youth we rally to 'Seize the day', but we don't own it. As Joseph Campbell said and wrote, 'Follow your bliss'. The rest will take care of itself just like the feet and hands wash themselves in the process of showering or bathing. Semoga berhasil!
toddkazakov 11y ago
I am based in Bulgaria and I recently had my first experience with a potential Swiss employer. It was rather unpleasant. After I went through 5 interviews we discussed my rates (as a remote consultant). I received a low ball counter offer which was about the half of what I usually charge. This quickly became a racist rant and a senior manager at the company tried to persuade me by saying that with the money they offered I'll "live like a king" in Bulgaria. Needless to say I politely declined because I would much rather work with people that value my work. I was really surprised that such unprofessional attitude came from Swiss company, but apparently it's not so uncommon judging by the blog post.
- naivepiano 11y ago
  Sad as it may be your being based on a low income country was probably one of the main reasons they approached you. And it is quite universal so I wouldn't attribute it to unprofessionalism. From company's point of view it makes perfect sense to outsource to the best quality/price ratio.
  - collyw 11y ago
    Maybe at double the price he would still be the best quality /price ratio.
    - toddkazakov 11y ago
      And still, I was probably 30% cheaper than a local consultant. Anyway, if a relationship starts in this way I cannot image what working with the client would be, so I did myself a favor.
  - toddkazakov 11y ago
    Actually, this wasn't the reason. I already knew the guy who approached me. They were developing a data analytics solution quite similar to others I have worked on/built in the past. They needed a developer with a real-world product experience in their domain. Unfortunately, it wasn't my acquaintance who was responsible for the hiring. Luckily, the software development market is global and there are some really sane people out there.
known 11y ago
Excellent tips; However in globalization you need to be a highly skilled wage slave
iLoch 11y ago
> Companies want you to shut up about that, so that women are paid 70% of what men are paid. Stopped reading here because I assumed the rest would be equally as well informed. Shame too, I was enjoying the perspective. Edit: Decided to give the author the benefit of the doubt and continued reading for the opportunity to have my perspective changed. With that said, I'm also not very fond of the anti-white male narrative quoted below, and I'll elaborate on why > If you are a white male remember all the privilege you have enjoyed since birth just because you were born that way. It is your responsibility to change the industry and its bias towards more inclusion. I don't think the real problem here is with being white, male or privileged. (Though, obviously our industry has a problem with diversity.) Programmers, for better or worse, typically aren't very sociable people, and thus become abrasive to dissenting opinions. (I'll be the first to admit that I do this, and will continue to do it as I try to improve and reduce this behaviour.) Whether that opinion comes from a transexual black 10x-er or a straight white female who recently graduated from college, or even a seasoned veteran with 25 years experience. Quite often, a difference of opinion for programmers defaults to "they're wrong because they don't think like me." I experience this daily, and I'm a straight white 21 year old male from an affluent community. So to the authors point, yes if we could stop being assholes to each other that would be great. However I absolutely disagree that the behaviour of my peers is racially motivated, and I resent the implication. And I'm supposed to "send the elevator down" just to those who I assume to be the most slighted minority? How do you suppose that works? Should I just assume that all women need my help and support because they're women? What indicators would one even use to determine such a qualification, other than being systematically sexist and racist? Here's a thought: help everyone, as often as possible! Don't motivate your behaviour based on peoples' identities! But yes, I do agree with the underlying sentiment that follows, I just wish it wasn't prefaced with unnecessary garbage. > Do not critisize or make fun of the technology choices of your peers; for other people will have their own reasons to choose them, and they must be respected. Be prepared to change your mind at any time through learning. Perfect. Why did we need the intro?
a_c 11y ago
> 3. Learn About Software History I was reading about zeromq. From zeromq, I linked to iMatrix, OpenAMQP, GSL, and then Pieter Hintjens and Protocol of Dying. Indeed, history of software, including the people behind it, is no less interesting than the software itself.
zelos 11y ago
My new todo list: 1) Invent time machine 2) Go back in time and make my 24-year-old self read this article.
s3nnyy 11y ago
"Say 'I won’t do what you tell me' and change jobs. There are fantastic workplaces out there; not a lot, but they exist. [...] Do not let a bad job kill your enthusiasm. It is not worth it. Disobey and move on." Especially Europeans have problems thinking like this. I always advise engineers to keep on looking for better offers / jobs the moment they take a new job. Instead many hibernate in a job for 3-5 years without thinking of their careers and hence miss opportunities. Disclaimer: To help engineers finding jobs / working on their careers and support IT-firms to find people, I recently started a small headhunting agency. So mail me, if you look for a tech-job in Zurich. Salaries here after [!] taxes start at 7000 CHF / month. Find my e-mail address in my hn-handle or check out my story "8 reasons why I moved to Switzerland to work in IT" https://medium.com/@iwaninzurich/eight-reasons-why-i-moved-to-switzerland-to-work-in-it-c7ac18af4f90 https://medium.com/@iwaninzurich/eight-reasons-why-i-moved-t...
- adaml_623 11y ago
  That article could use a followup. Regarding the immigration cap in particular.
  - s3nnyy 11y ago
    Actually, I think I do mention the immigration cap in my article. That is even more incentive to come over now rather than in 1-2 years, when the immigration cap for EU citizens will be implemented as planned.
- mahyarm 11y ago
  Compensation wise it's still a better idea to move to the USA to work at google & co then. A typical goofacesoft sr engineer gets +$250k/yr total compensation + paid for health insurance with a %30-%40 total income tax rate as a sr engineer. Also to start a corporation, you have no capitalization requirements and it's easy-ish to hire canadians, australians and people work who work in a foreign office for +1 yr on a L visa. The waiting times for citizenship in the USA are surprisingly less than switzerland if you're not chinese or indian, which is pretty bad when the USA beats you in citizenship waiting time. And most important of all, there is a shit ton of VC cash to get investment dollars from.
ordbajsare 11y ago
>If you are a white male remember all the privilege you have enjoyed since birth just because you were born that way. It is your responsibility to change the industry and its bias towards more inclusion. FUCK YOU AND YOUR WHITE GUILT BULLSHIT!
barnacs 11y ago
"forget the hype, make sure to learn node and start building bots" That aside, a lot of the more generic points make sense.
arc_of_descent 11y ago
Nice post. A bit nostalgic but we all need a meme to get readers interested. In the OP's case its "I'm getting older, but I still love what I'm doing. Come join me!". What I do when a new tech hype comes along, is allocate myself some time to it. Ok, Webpack? Let me give myself three days (around 20 hours) to check it out. If I don't understand it at first, keep pushing. If after 20 hours, I still don't get it, abandon it and move on. Of course, 20 hours is just an estimate. If after a day, I feel like some magic has taken place (like what Backbone.js did to me), I'm hooked. And yes, definitely gravitate towards a galaxy. Sometimes galaxies do merge and you will reap the benefits :) I'm 38, programming for 15 years. And I still love coding and doing systems stuff.
_yosefk 11y ago
"That means that you she or he gets 100 KCHF per year, but she or he are actually creating a value worth over a million francs. And of course, they get the bonuses at the end of the fiscal year, because, you know, capitalism. Know your worth. Read Karl Marx and Thomas Piketty. Enough said." While neither Karl Marx nor Thomas Piketty have a great track record when it comes to economic policy prescriptions (Dean Baker's opinion on this might be interesting for people who share much of their world view with all three of these economists), will they teach me to better negotiate based on my "knowledge of my worth"? I rather doubt that they will, given that the punchline of much of their writing is that worker compensation necessarily trends towards the subsistence level over time, r>g, etc. etc. Certainly if the point is to "know your worth" in the sense of being able to negotiate a better compensation, a better source ought to be available. Separately, it's an interesting turn of events that fairly politicized economists' writings are now recommended reading for computer programmers. The next logical step is a recommendation to join a political party (certainly joing the political party would help one's career in the USSR where Marx was required reading for people entering the professions.)
- lintiness 11y ago
  a nice piece on understanding self and the pursuit of a rewarding life in tech or code or whatever (with real examples from said life) diverged in a wood of political lecturing garbage.
batat 11y ago
> Do not worry about hype. Keep doing your thing, keep learning what you were learning, and move on. Thanks, Adrian. Now I have an official excuse for not writing a single app with Angular/React in 2016.
jgrahamc 11y ago
In an email exchange I had with C.A.R. Hoare a couple of years back he said: Paradoxically, I have been working on shared variable concurrency, using a partially ordered trace semantics. Until I retired, I was too frightened to tackle anything so difficult. Definitely life after 40, 50, 60, 70, ...
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buserror 11y ago
I think that misses one big point here; and a point that I live by: Don't waste your neurons and time. Time is the most precious thing you have, so don't waste it learning stuff you won't need. Even if it's shinny. Resist, and for the things you do need, don't become an 'expert' -- pick the things you NEED and scope it well. Then hop along on the new tech that came around... I always see any new thing I take on as an investment, and I try to make it pay down the line... I didn't use to do that, and I'm an expert in a few tech that I had fun learning, but have absolutely zero relevance today. See, I can write Altivec code without the scalar version for example. That was useful for about 2 years...
- justinhj 11y ago
  This is where luck comes in. If you wait until something is super popular then you lose the advantage of being one of the first people that understand the technology when it goes into production. Also sometimes you may learn something that never pays off but later it feeds into something that does. I spent a lot of time learning Common Lisp and could never apply that knowledge at work until functional programming became more mainstream and Scala/Clojure became acceptable languages for production.
stevetrewick 11y ago
Ignore the hype - but learn everything. Think for yourself - but go with the crowd. And don't forget the sunscreen. Oh, and XML was totally a buzzword in '97.
- dfox 11y ago
  XML started to be really meaningful buzzword in '98 or '99. (with first really useful implementations in like 2000)
- gdubs 11y ago
  Came here to post "And don't forget the sunscreen", but did a quick command-f to see if anyone else had already. :) Which, in fact, was released in 1997!
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ManlyBread 11y ago
The article was pretty good until this part. >If you are a white male remember all the privilege you have enjoyed since birth just because you were born that way. It is your responsibility to change the industry and its bias towards more inclusion. I'm from an Eastern Europe and my family never was rich, I had to put in a tremendous effort to even get into the industry. Assuming I got an easy ride simply because I'm white is a pretty racist statement and I find myself surprised that no one is calling out the author on it. >It is your duty to send the elevator down. No, it's not. Just like women don't have any duty to ensure that there's an arbitrary number of men working as models and just like black NBA players have no obligation to ensure that there's enough white guys on the team I have no obligation to worry about some arbitrary quotas.
- vanderZwan 11y ago
  > I'm from an Eastern Europe and my family never was rich Then the comment does not apply to you. I don't think you quite understand how deep the rabbit hole of this form of "whiteness" goes; as a social construct it implies people from Western Europe or North America. Surely you have experienced how there are people from there who treat Eastern Europe people as less "civilized? Similarly for, say, Mediterranean ethnicities. White male privilege might not (fully) extend to you, but that does not disprove its existence.
  - ManlyBread 11y ago
    >> I'm from an Eastern Europe and my family never was rich >Then the comment does not apply to you. It does, I'm white. The author specifically mentions "white male".
    - wmccullough 11y ago
      But it doesn't. He may not have specified "from North America", but that's what he meant.
      - stray 11y ago
ljw1001 11y ago
I found the advice to be quite a mixed bag, but um, having just turned 42, the OP knows very little about being a developer after 40. The article is about what he learned as an under-40 developer.
fecklessyouth 11y ago
>The reason for this lies in the fact that, as the Romans said in the past, Nil nove sul sole This is from the Old Testament. http://biblehub.com/ecclesiastes/1-9.htm http://biblehub.com/ecclesiastes/1-9.htm
patwolf 11y ago
>Learn all you can about LLVM While I'm sure LLVM is an important technology, I don't feel it's everyone's job to learn and know everything there is to know about it. There will perhaps be a niche group of developers making cool things with LLVM, most developers can get along just fine without knowing anything about it.
- avoutthere 11y ago
  "Forget the Hype" followed by LLVM hype.
philbarr 11y ago
> A British roundabout with 6 intersections... There's one of those in Hemel Hempstead. And surprisingly it works really well... On a related note, if you have the chance to go to Hemel Hempstead, don't.
- walshemj 11y ago
  I think its only 5 now - and the fun thing about the magic roundabout is you can go either way round. I must admit I used to when riding a bike round there chicken out and use the under pass.
known 11y ago
Within in the context of H1B it's a different game altogether.
programminggeek 11y ago
It is not our duty to do anything. If you want to do something fine. But honestly, I work my butt off to get what I've got and I'm perfectly happy to help others that do the same. I refuse to help someone just because they are female or a minority just because they are female or a minority. I also refuse to help people who won't help themselves. Those who want to be great, I will help them every way I can. It doesn't matter gender or ethnicity. It's about work ethic.
manishsharan 11y ago
As a developer over 40, my biggest challenge is actually that the management has come to expect weekend work and late nights as the norm. As someone with a family , I can't put in those hours every day and every weekend. Single programmers who can put in those kind of hours are rewarded and those who cant are singled out for ridicule or "performance concern chats with manager". Projects have gone agile and they have not accounted for the unexpected shit that happens, low level functional designs seem to have fallen out of fashion and the deliverable deadlines have become ultra aggressive. And the mangers' attitude is that "they can shake any tree and it rains qualified programmer resumes". Here in Toronto, there is a company called Allegis and all major employers post their developer job here. The headhunters are plugged into Allegis and they call you based on keyword match. Have you ever seen poor people huddled outside HomeDepot, hoping to be picked up? Thats what it like to be a developer searching for a job in my town. Most enterprise dev jobs are focused on a very narrow set of skills; so it doesn't matter how good you are with designing solutions or algorithms you know -- what matters is do you know java/c#/angular(new) ? And thats all that matters for Allegis keyword match. You are probably thinking I can learn more technologies ; what I am pointing out is that enterprise s/w development process is based on the fundamental principle of getting barely skilled people who can put in the hours and keep their mouth shut. But these jobs pay a lot more than startup jobs and have a lot more security.
- pc86 11y ago
  This is probably an unpopular opinion here, but only a very small subset of developers need to design algorithms or even know any of them by heart. Disregarding a few years that was mostly WordPress consulting, my experience is largely enterprise C#. Lots of line of business applications, glorified CRUD apps, and some client work. Zero need for any ability to write a BST or radix sort. If you're working for SpaceX, or Twitter, or a Big 4, of course you should know those things. But most developers don't work for one of those companies. The vast majority of programming is done to further a business other than programming.
  - deleted 11y ago
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benten10 11y ago
Hahahahaha, loooving the comments. ABSOLUTELY loving them. Wherein white men complain calling them white man is racist and in fact THEY are the real victims here who had to work HARD despite all the NEGATIVE STEREOTYPES against men in tech. Keep chugging mah chums, keep chugging!
- deleted 11y ago
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daxfohl 11y ago
This had nothing to do with being a developer after 40. tldr: Banal, overconfident advice on the subject of a software career, devolving into political rants at times.
dhogan 11y ago
>help a younger developer by becoming their mentor (do not do this before the age of 30, though.) Why the age of 30? Just curious.
- AnimalMuppet 11y ago
  Because before then, you don't know enough to be an effective mentor. ("30" here is a proxy for a level of experience.)
hartator 11y ago
"Nil nove sul sole" means nothing new under the sun.
nucleardonuts 11y ago
I grow weary of hearing about "white privilege". I likewise grow weary of any of today's politically correct messages: women in combat, bathroom bills, work quotas, transvestite rights. It's all BS. I grew up a military brat. We didn't have a lot of money. I wore hand-me-downs, had iron-on patches on my knees. My family could not afford to send me to college, so I served in the military to get the GI Bill and worked my own way through college. I'm over 40, in IT and no one ever gave me hand out in relation to any job or education. Like an earlier poster said, I'm under no obligation to do anything. I believe in hard work. No one should be given a free ride because they are black, homosexual, female, whatever. Work your ass off to get where you want to be. Full stop. No one is under a moral or other obligation to get you in the door or ensure fair play. I'm not an asshole to people, but everyone has the same opportunities. I realize the military is not for everyone, but young men especially can really benefit. You can do a four-year hitch and have your college paid for. If you like it, you could re-up as an officer and the sky is the limit. The problem with people today is they have a sense of entitlement that is misplaced. No one owes anyone anything other than moral decency: please, thank you, that kind of thing. Work hard, play hard. Life is better without handouts. You have a sense of fulfillment when you pull yourself up by your bootstraps.
- african_cheetah 11y ago
  > everyone has the same opportunities. Not really. That's what it means. Being white makes it slightly easier to get some opportunities.
  - CamperZero 11y ago
    Two people of the same socioeconomic standing but of different races. One has a lower bar to entry into college because of affirmative action and a easier time getting a high paying job because of diversity needs. Who has the privilege here?
    - d4rkph1b3r 11y ago
      Trick question, nobody fucking knows without knowing their entire history.
mindcrime 11y ago
Being a 40+ developer myself, I find myself largely agreeing with this post. I guess I could quibble over some small details, but by and large, I think the author is spot on. The one thing I'll add to this, is to say that, for devs like us, things like Coursera, Udacity, EdX, etc. are really valuable. When you're a mid-career professional who already has strong technical chops in at least one area, "on demand education" like this is super valuable in multiple regards: 1. It's much more accessible since you don't have to go sit in class, on campus, every day, etc. You can fit it around your existing life much more easily. 2. It can serve as a nice way to start "bridging" to a new area. For example, if you're already, say, a skilled Java developer and you want to start moving into Data Science, MOOCs offer a nice way to pick up some additional credentials to help that transition. People argue about the value of certificates from Coursera and the like, and that's fair. I think you don't want something like that to be the only credential you have, if possible. But taken as a complement to your existing credentials, experience and skills, I believe these things can be very useful. 3. Related to (2) above, but MOOCs can be a nice way to add complementary education outside of tech altogether. If you're a developer who aspires to eventually move into management or whatever, consider taking business classes from Coursera/EdX/Udacity as well. There are some really nice offerings out there, including a complete (accredited) MBA program that you can do (partly) through Coursera in conjunction with the University of Illinois. Or maybe you're a Java developer (just an example, I don't mean to pick on Java people, as "I is one") who thinks that something to do with synthetic biology is going to be "the next big thing", but doesn't want to go back to school for a biology degree... great, there's a ton of life sciences / biology / chemistry /etc. stuff that you can take online if you want to start positioning yourself for something like that. Let me also add this: I totally agree that you don't need to go "all in" on every new tech that comes out, and try to ride the hype wave for everything new. But, I think it's smart to at least explore (many|most|some|??) of the trendy new stuff, to a limited depth... at least dip your toes in the water, do the "Hello world of XXXX" where XXXX is Swift, or R, or Rust, or Scala, or Node, or Go or whatever. At least give yourself a fair chance to evaluate the new stuff, decide if you feel like it's worth investing more in based on direct experience, and at least get a feel for the toolchain and what-not. From there, you can kind of monitor what's going on around you and decide if/when to go deeper with new technology XXXX. Yes, doing all this requires an investment of some time, but that's part of the cost of keeping your value up. Of course, the truth is, most of this goes equally for the "under 40" crowd as well. But the whole "keep learning new stuff" thing probably becomes a little more important as you get older. There might be exceptions like the whole "COBOL programmer who gets paid big bucks because nobody new is learning COBOL anymore" but I'd consider those situations to be exceptions.
NiftyFifty 11y ago
Thank, God ... the world doesn't work like this. Grabbing my coffee and going to my privileged position as an American .... just because I'm white shouldn't be held against me. Stop calling me "white privilege". It shows you have no lack of motivation to work yourself AROUND a problem, vs. pointing at things of barrier. The tech industry SOLVES problems, not creates them.
vinceguidry 11y ago
> "Ok, let's make a rails app" > "Oh, I need rails first" > "Oh, I need rbenv first" > "Oh I need brew" > "Oh I need xcode tools" As a Rails dev, this made me chuckle, yes, I've put a lot of hours into troubleshooting dev setups. But this is the wrong example. All of these are installed with one line on the terminal. And really, there are far simpler web stacks to pick up without even having to leave Ruby. Sinatra on system Ruby works just fine. All you do is 'gem install sinatra', open up a text editor and go. Really, the complexity you have to watch out for is the complexity you impose yourself. Choosing the wrong tools for the job or the wrong abstractions. For many applications, Rails is overkill.
- danielweber 11y ago
  That involves knowing the one line on the terminal, and when you google "rails set up" you will get a bunch of out-of-date tutorials, and not knowing rails you won't know which is out-of-date. On the other hand, 30 year old C code will often compile right out of the box, because the people maintaining them weren't chasing the New Flashy every year. The modern systems suck in terms of maintainability.
- nickthemagicman 11y ago
  Lol as opposed to PHP where you just drop the folder into Apache folder and you're done.
emodendroket 11y ago
> The reason for this lies in the fact that, as the Romans said in the past, Nil nove sul sole. This is actually originally from Ecclesiastes, not the Romans.
daveheq 11y ago
You owe the world nothing for being born white, and hiring people based on their skin color is racist.
EdiX 11y ago
> as the Romans said in the past, Nil nove sul sole They didn't say that.
sanpan 11y ago
I just want to say thanks for introducing me to ponysay. My terminal was dull until you all shared its magic with me.
mooreds 11y ago
I enjoyed this. Could have just as easily been called "Being an experienced developer" because age doesn't factor in to his message that much.
okreallywtf 11y ago
Did I just stumble on slashdot? I much prefer the discourse on HN but the reaction to "PC culture" and "White privilege" is basically the same everywhere. It has never been supposed to mean anything about an individual, and yet that is ALWAYS how it seems to be taken. We (as white and or males) can't help but see things from our individual perspective and take offense at the implication we ever had anything easier than anyone else. I agree with others in the thread, we just need to throw away the word white privilege and come up with something else because it has been totally poisoned. I'm not saying there aren't overzealous "social justice warriors" that haven't contributed to the misunderstanding of the word. Just remember, when people use the word white privilege, THEY ARE NOT REFERRING TO YOU AS AN INDIVIDUAL FOR THE LOVE OF GOD.
- Karunamon 11y ago
  yet that is ALWAYS how it seems to be taken This is a clue that perhaps your terminology is loaded, inflammatory, and should be changed. I find that there's very little value in reasoning about race as a collective, since it's usually just a (overly) reductive variable for socioeconomic status, upbringing, or environment. If you mean those things, say those things. Attaching a racial modifier to a term and then expecting members of that race to not feel described or targeted by it makes no sense. (And that goes double when that term is used, often, as an attack, not in the thoughtful way you describe, but that is a rant for another time.)
  - okreallywtf 11y ago
    You've actually hit on the exact point, there is no point in reasoning about race, but as much as we wish that people didn't see race, the fact is they do. That is the entire point of the term. Because of your race, people do reason about your race, and do make assumptions about your socioeconomic status, upbringing, and environment. I'll grant you that there are (probably a very few) people who do get some satisfaction out of feeling like a victim but otherwise, nobody is more tired of reasoning about race in america than black americans (who are of course not the only discriminated against minority). You seem to be implying that america is post racial and some of just won't let it go.
aerovistae 11y ago
> You could experience that right here in Switzerland. lol
iLemming 11y ago
you know what? f... you people. I was hoping to know your opinions about technological choices and things you think would be relevant 20 years from now. And what do I get? 40 f...ing pages of gender and race inequality crap. The article is not about that, damn it!
- Kequc 11y ago
  Don't put things into articles people are going to talk about that you don't want people to talk about. There are two topics in the article and the discussion here broaches both.
iLemming 11y ago
you know what? f... you people. I was hoping to know your opinions about technological choices and things you think would be relevant 20 years from now. And what do I get? 40 f...ing pages of gender and race inequality crap. The article is not about that, damn it!
Kami_sama 11y ago
>If you are a white male remember all the privilege you have enjoyed since birth just because you were born that way. It is your responsibility to change the industry and its bias towards more inclusion. Nope, sorry I don't care.
alexandercrohde 11y ago
---Disobey authority. Say “fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me” and change jobs. Challenge authority, but don't be an ass about it. Simply try to help them understand that you are doing them a favor by challenging them. Perhaps say, "Do you mind if I weigh in on that?" If they aren't interested in your opinion still follow up with "I understand you've thought about this, but I've also given this a lot of thought and I also have a lot of experience around this and I've seen it be a problem before."
magni- 11y ago
It's sad that the majority of the discussion from this post is people misunderstanding the term "white privilege" and getting so defensive about it. Changing topics: that was a great read. The links were also great reads and rereads. What do people think of Joel's six mistakes from the "great software takes ten years", sixteen years later? http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000017.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000017.html
pasquinelli 11y ago
"you were, are and will be a software developer, that is, a relatively expensive factory worker, whose tasks your managers would be happy to offshore no matter what they tell you." this is exactly my experience. writing software really doesn't require any great creative mind or cleverness. i'm a pretty mediocre programmer. i got roped into programming as a kid by, first of all because i wanted to make video games, but then once i'd dipped my toe in i found learning new, exotic (seeming) ideas and making clever solutions to problems was a lot of fun in and of itself. but i can think of only one time i got paid to do anything that felt like that: working on a tetris game with bombliss, without the official tetris rules. the rules of tetris are surprisingly deep and refined, in case you didn't know, so that endeavor was utterly insane and disastrous, which was the general character of the company i was working for. but still, it was a lot of fun playing physicist from the tetris universe, trying to infer the rules through experimentation. to write software, once you have the skill down, is really just about doing the work. it doesn't require any insight, unless you intend to write good software, but no one cares about good software. no cares about the software at all. they have things they want to do, and the software, the making of it, is, if anything an impediment. so is the person making it.
- themodelplumber 11y ago
  While it probably confirms a lot of fears around here, this comment is pretty hyperbolic. That is to say, it captures the lowest lows (replaceable cog) and some of the highest highs (experimental physicist in Tetris universe). But most of us are not really suffering under those conditions, except (critically!) in an imagined way. > it doesn't require any insight, unless you intend to write good software, but no one cares about good software. This last statement is demonstrably false. Many people care about good software. Just like they care about good cars, good vacations, good hot dogs. But still, grumpy developers will upvote this and believe in it. They then become a self-fulfilling prophecy. They see threats that don't exist, then at some point they call out those threats and in doing so cash in their chips. I've seen many smart developers miss great opportunities in doing this. They could be learning to make their own terms and push back, taking advantage of high demand. Instead they become a plumber, landscaper, or Ph.D., thinking the grass really is greener over there. Well, maybe so. But that mentality has not changed, so what are the real chances?
abc_lisper 11y ago
Absolutely love this guy! Somehow I feel lonely when I say open-offices are an absolute evil. Thanks for raising that point!
ak39 11y ago
I'd only add one more point to this otherwise excellent list of advice for programmers doing it for the long haul: 13. Strive to become as proficient as you can in the business domain in which you ply your programming. Such proficiency can be a crucial asset if you have plans to start your own consultancy or to produce specialised products and solutions for niche markets.
frostymarvelous 11y ago
>Software companies have become sweatshops where you are supposed to justify your absurdly high salary with insane hours and unreasonable expectations. Sadly, I've felt this way for the past two months since I took my new job. I had to take a pay cut for it. Sadly, I think the new company thinks I'm being overpaid and the demands are crazy. All of a sudden, I understand so many of the WTFs on TDWTF!
- deleted 11y ago
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854 points by wallflower 11y ago

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guessbest 11y ago

I remember the AVR hype. It was supposed to "change everything" but is became a big nothing burger.

TerryADavis 11y ago

I wrote a HolyC compiler and an x86_64 assembler. It does a little bit of 16-bit, but noone needs it because it is juts used during boot and you have no business. My 64-bit assembly is missing all the MMX SSE stuff at the moment. I don't really care for those.

edwardmarriner 11y ago

Thanks for this! A super interesting and well written look into what a career in software development can look like!

ry_ry 11y ago

Warm fuzzy nostalgia aside, this article seems to amount to "Learn everything, read everything, do everything, don't bandwagon, Apple is pretty cool. The other stuff is OK too, if you like that sort of thing. Learn Node. PS. Don't harrass people". It's an amalgamation of every Medium tech-post ever.

ramblerman 11y ago
Yet, your sarcastic summary is a breath of fresh air in the HN comments...
- smhg 11y ago
  I wouldn't call it sarcasm. I had the same feeling while reading. The OP contains a lot of opinions about a lot of different subjects. An amalgamation.
  - eggy 11y ago
    I don't think amalgamation means what you think it means (obligatory reference to 'The Princess Bride' ;)). And if you mean by amalgamating that he united or tied together a lot of different opinions on a lot of different things, how is that unpleasant?
greenspot 11y ago
> It's an amalgamation of every Medium tech-post ever. Very well summarized. While I enjoyed this post somehow, maybe because I was thinking of the good old times, I didn't feel comfortable reading: I found his views having a touch of an ubiquitous negativity and slight frustration. I disagree with many of his points. And I miss one clear message.
RyanZAG 11y ago
I guess the real message is: believe whatever the mainstream audience believes at the time. You can't really go wrong with always agreeing with whatever the current thought bubble agrees with - and be quick to change your opinions if the herd is moving. When the author saw the derision against Steve Ballmer, and the favor Apple was getting, he made the clear choice to jump ship. And because he was part of that popular herd jumping ship, it worked very well. Follow the wind. It's actually a pretty good point and is a decent way to always remain relevant. You can't be left behind if you're always on top of the latest thought trends. EDIT: A missing piece the author points out too: don't be an early adopter of a thought trend (Point 1: Forget the hype). Only jump in when it becomes mainstream. If you adopt something before it becomes mainstream, there's a chance it can fail. If you wait until it is mainstream, but get in just as it becomes mainstream, you get the benefit of being an early adopter and the benefit of never being on the unpopular viewpoint.
- spacecowboy_lon 11y ago
  So your always going to be playing catch up - back in 94 when i had been playing with the www I volunteered to go to Edinburgh for a month to work on a cutting edge RAD/DSDM Project. Basically I told my then boss see you after Christmas - If I have followed that advice I would have stuck with Oracle and Java or spent my career in Mainframes
  - wodenokoto 11y ago
    > I would have stuck with Oracle and Java or spent my career in Mainframes And last I heard, there are tons of job openings asking for experts in Oracle and Java. So how exactly would that have been terrible in terms of getting a steady income?
    - spacecowboy_lon 11y ago
      Well enough if you want a traditional 9-5 job (which is fine if it suits you) - pity Java is such a PITA to work with though and Oracle do charge a lot! for there product. Trouble is if your company pivots and you have been doing Mainframe COBOL for 20 years - you might find transitioning to a new language hard.
koder2016 11y ago
He is talking about daring bets on technologies with a potential. Then insists you learn Node.js. If anything my bet is that JS is not worth learning at all because future is all about WebAssembly (and LLVM effectively - he is right about that).

x5n1 11y ago

Seems a bit bitter about the shit working conditions. And he's right. It's funny how the whole trade is shit.

tudorw 11y ago
There certainly seems to be a lot of young 'genius' and '*10' types who are willing to sacrifice their youth on the altar of a unicorn in return for a 1 in 100 chance of getting rich, if it's taking you more than 8 hours a day to make a living, you're poor :(
- x5n1 11y ago
  Even if the unicorns win it really depends on where you entered for you to actually make out rich. These days even the employees of the winner are getting shafted. There seems to be no ideas of human dignity or work life balance in this trade. It's not a profession, it's a trade. It should probably be unionized, and it would be if not for the high wage.
- naivepiano 11y ago
  Well said.

isxek 11y ago

Slightly disappointed about the post not being about how they became a developer at age 40, which was what I initially thought it was. I started my career as a software developer at precisely 10am, on Monday October 6th, 1997... I had recently celebrated my 24th birthday.

eggy 11y ago
I initially drew the same conclusion, but was nonetheless entertained by it.

groundCode 11y ago

This was a good read - I'm a dev over 40 and much of this rang true. I think there's a lot of great advice in there. One standout for me was "Be prepared to change your mind at any time through learning. " - something that I think we should all aspire to.

febed 11y ago

I have seen developers threatened to have their work visas not renewed if they did not work faster That was an eye-opener. For some reason I thought Switzerland was a worker's utopia with the relatively higher salaries.

ramblerman 11y ago
I had the same initial reaction but if you think it through not having your visa renewed effectively comes down to being fired, i.e. the company terminating their dealings with you. Doesn't make it better (at all), but it's essentially just the threat of firing albeit with more weight behind it for the visa workers. Not the company calling the visa office about you or holding on to your passport, etc...
- Create 11y ago
  I have seen people threatened to have their work visas not renewed in Sweden.
  - bbv-if 11y ago
    Well, this risk is the price you have pay to work in a better country. And anyway, most probably they would have some time (in my case, up to 45 days) after the contract termination to find a new job, so it's not that tragic.
bbv-if 11y ago
Not for Gastarbeiter. You're supposed to work, pay all taxes and GTFO before you can legally claim any benefits, while still being despised by unemployed locals for "stealing" their jobs.
african_cheetah 11y ago
It's not so different in the US either. My previous manager has indirectly referenced delaying my green card process if I didn't deliver on time.
NormlOverrated 11y ago

jbb555 11y ago

Most of this seems very negative.

tluyben2 11y ago

I'm 41 and a dev (and manager and bunch of other roles when needed, but most my days are spent with software/hardware dev) and sure, it's all true what this article says, but there is no real personal advice there besides, as others said, just 'don't do everything, but do everything'. So some unasked advice from a 40+ then which I wish I was told when I was 17 or something: a) believe in yourself; learn from others, but if you have strong opinions or think something is wrong then voice it even though others (are supposed to) have more experience b) fast typing and making long hours are irrelevant c) get out there and mingle with non coders a lot. All of these 3 points (I learned them at different stages, in order of appearance above; c I only started doing 3 years ago) made me never having to need a job as such, always worked where/when I wanted, always made enough money and usually have enough spare time to do whatever while still performing.

soft_dev_person 11y ago
It may be obvious (i.e. general networking effects), but what dynamic let c) give you work and freedom? Please elaborate. As a coder who really dread interacting with people (especially non-technical people) in the context of work, I'd like to know how this advice would change my life.
- niels_olson 11y ago
  There's a lot of money out there that code hasn't touched yet. Biological sciences in particular are remarkably stuck in the 20th century. Don't talk to them about bioinformatics. Listen to the things they're doing. As though you were 12. And just ask questions.
- ricksplat 11y ago
  I can't emphasise enough how important (c) is. Personally, I find programming to be emotionally challenging in that you have to put emotion, and your own thoughts aside when cutting your code. Add in to the mix the social dynamic of the workplace and the emotional workload doubles. I always had a feeling this was important. I remember reading about NEDs (New Economy Depression syndrome) and identifying with that, but it wasn't until I went and did a diploma in psychology that the rationality behind it all crystalised. Across all fields that study wellbeing it's fairly conclusive that social support is one of the most powerful mediating factors. In summary the more friends you have the happier and healthier you will be. How does this relate to "non technical people"? As a friend once said to me once, when I was going through a particularly kafkaesque work episode, "you need to get outside of your head". You need to engage with people on a plane other than the one you work upon every day - to give those parts of your brain a rest and to help you to develop others. People are hard though. In many ways more difficult than computers but the key thing to remember is that unlike with computers there isn't a right or wrong thing to do at all times. People have empathy, they can be sympathetic, they can meet you half way and they can help you to figure out what you're thinking. Start off with something small, where you don't have to have too many interactions, but where you can be around people. I don't know why but for some reason communal drumming classes comes to mind. The key is to be around people where they will get to know your face and you theirs.

ricksplat 11y ago

In 1997 I was finishing high school, and about to commence undergraduate studies. I was "interested" in computing and Linux had passed 2.0 and was well on its way to entering the main stream. I remember obtaining a copy of redhat from my local library and a few very significant threads of my career to date commenced. Java is also a child of the nineties and 1.1 I believe was the first arguably "finished" implementation. I remember the computer magazines were going off on about it at the time and I got a free Java IDE off a cover disk and wrote my first 2D canvas app. These were the two main "galaxies" I inhabited for the last 20 years with various holidays here and there. The benefit of inhabiting such relatively "open" galaxies is that they provide easily accessible conduits to other galaxies too. Thanks for the 90s nostalgia - very nearly brought a tear to my eye.

salex89 11y ago

If it is really possible to learn one language each year, and read six books, I'm going to be very impressed with that. Especially considering side projects you actually start in some language, frameworks (which are not the same as languages, obviously), and conceptual things which are language-agnostic. And then comes family, home maintenance and, just sometimes, rest :-) .

unusximmortalis 11y ago
I had the same thought... maybe I am doing something wrong :) I will reflect on that
spacecowboy_lon 11y ago
Why not? i learnt PL/1G in a week and was productive by the end of the second week. I can easily go thorough 6 books in a month one of the advantages of commuting by train.
jonstewart 11y ago
I think it's possible to gain substantive exposure to one new programming language a year, to kick the tires and gain insight into some of the features and idioms that make it tick. However, I don't think it's really possible to become an expert in one new language per year. I think it is much more realistic to master one new language every 3–7 years (depending on the language). Playing with one new language per year might help one figure out which new language to master.
overcast 11y ago
Reading six books a year is really nothing, and I'm not even sure why the author makes a big deal about it. Especially those books he suggested, are very short, often lots of pictures and examples. Agreed on the new language though, your best course is to just start a fresh project with something new. That's how I learn new things. Just jump in head first.

shipintbrief 11y ago

Mentioning income gap at the end were very random. I wish author would mention it in the beginning, so I wouldn't waste time reading the whole thing.

eggy 11y ago

I liked the post, and empathized with some truths in it. I saved up and bought a used Commodore PET in 1977 at age 13. I taught myself assembler, c, basic, and went on to buy a Vic-20, C-64, Amiga 1000, Amiga 500, Mac PowerPC, NCR 3125 (386 pen-based tablet in 1995 or 1996!), and then read up on AI in the 1980s - Neural Networks, GAs, GP, Expert systems, Fuzzy Systems, Chaos, Complexity, etc... I was using Minix on my Amiga before Linux on my PowerPC, and I have dual-booted since, but Windows is also in my repertoire. THEN, I gave it all up and became a welder at an animatronics company that made window displays, stayed in the entertainment field designing stage machinery, special effects, and so on. My last job was at a water show diving and fixing hydraulic and electrical systems as a senior manager and show manager (not in the US, since a senior manager would not be caught dead in the water!). I have now aged 51 years 11 months, getting heavily back into neural nets, livecoding graphics and music while living in East Java, Indonesia. I was born and raised in Brooklyn, NY as a contrast. All I can say, and what I bestow on my older two children (I just fathered a baby girl a year ago), is that I left the fast track to the huge salary to do what I wanted, and that always kept me happy, and busy in a good way. I read books until I don't understand them, and then go back and forth to others until I do, and I stayed physical, and avoided 'desk job' ailments of most people my age. I have grown to know it is time, time with family and friends that money buys you. And if you have food, a roof over your head and some toys, you don't need the other $25K to $100K per year, or what have you. No, there is nothing new under the sun, but I have miles to go before I sleep...

neotrinity 11y ago
I have miles to go before I sleep.. I like the reference to Stopping by woods on a snowy evening.. Great to see u made yourself a good life in east java. My grandpa lived in Solo and my dad in Jakarta. I tried so much to move there. But couldnt make it. I am still stuck at the hamsters wheel in London. Hopefully i can get a fully remote job and then move to Indonesia. I can only dream ! /dream
- eggy 11y ago
  The Robert Frost reference I played because I always feel like I can keep learning som much more, do so much more, as I think he tries to convey in his article. And I played it off the English translation of his Latin quote, 'Nil nove sul sole' ('Nothing new under the sun') to convey that too. You're never stuck; it's in your head. I grew up poor in Brooklyn, and I have taken lower paying jobs after higher paying ones for the experience and fun of it. You learn to live within your means. You don't need a remote job to move to Indonesia. I live on very little here. I spend more on luxuries like books and credit for Internet. I am far from any big stores or town, so the temptation to just spend is gone too. I am sure you can manage to save $10K USD in a year. I am spending the time studying, exercising, sleeping (I have slept an average of 6 hours or less per night for the past 30 years or so, and now I try and get 8 to 9 hours, sometimes more!). The old cliche 'Life is short' rings more loudly as you get older, and peers start dying around you. In our youth we rally to 'Seize the day', but we don't own it. As Joseph Campbell said and wrote, 'Follow your bliss'. The rest will take care of itself just like the feet and hands wash themselves in the process of showering or bathing. Semoga berhasil!

toddkazakov 11y ago

I am based in Bulgaria and I recently had my first experience with a potential Swiss employer. It was rather unpleasant. After I went through 5 interviews we discussed my rates (as a remote consultant). I received a low ball counter offer which was about the half of what I usually charge. This quickly became a racist rant and a senior manager at the company tried to persuade me by saying that with the money they offered I'll "live like a king" in Bulgaria. Needless to say I politely declined because I would much rather work with people that value my work. I was really surprised that such unprofessional attitude came from Swiss company, but apparently it's not so uncommon judging by the blog post.

naivepiano 11y ago
Sad as it may be your being based on a low income country was probably one of the main reasons they approached you. And it is quite universal so I wouldn't attribute it to unprofessionalism. From company's point of view it makes perfect sense to outsource to the best quality/price ratio.
- collyw 11y ago
  Maybe at double the price he would still be the best quality /price ratio.
  - toddkazakov 11y ago
    And still, I was probably 30% cheaper than a local consultant. Anyway, if a relationship starts in this way I cannot image what working with the client would be, so I did myself a favor.
- toddkazakov 11y ago
  Actually, this wasn't the reason. I already knew the guy who approached me. They were developing a data analytics solution quite similar to others I have worked on/built in the past. They needed a developer with a real-world product experience in their domain. Unfortunately, it wasn't my acquaintance who was responsible for the hiring. Luckily, the software development market is global and there are some really sane people out there.

known 11y ago

Excellent tips; However in globalization you need to be a highly skilled wage slave

iLoch 11y ago

> Companies want you to shut up about that, so that women are paid 70% of what men are paid. Stopped reading here because I assumed the rest would be equally as well informed. Shame too, I was enjoying the perspective. Edit: Decided to give the author the benefit of the doubt and continued reading for the opportunity to have my perspective changed. With that said, I'm also not very fond of the anti-white male narrative quoted below, and I'll elaborate on why > If you are a white male remember all the privilege you have enjoyed since birth just because you were born that way. It is your responsibility to change the industry and its bias towards more inclusion. I don't think the real problem here is with being white, male or privileged. (Though, obviously our industry has a problem with diversity.) Programmers, for better or worse, typically aren't very sociable people, and thus become abrasive to dissenting opinions. (I'll be the first to admit that I do this, and will continue to do it as I try to improve and reduce this behaviour.) Whether that opinion comes from a transexual black 10x-er or a straight white female who recently graduated from college, or even a seasoned veteran with 25 years experience. Quite often, a difference of opinion for programmers defaults to "they're wrong because they don't think like me." I experience this daily, and I'm a straight white 21 year old male from an affluent community. So to the authors point, yes if we could stop being assholes to each other that would be great. However I absolutely disagree that the behaviour of my peers is racially motivated, and I resent the implication. And I'm supposed to "send the elevator down" just to those who I assume to be the most slighted minority? How do you suppose that works? Should I just assume that all women need my help and support because they're women? What indicators would one even use to determine such a qualification, other than being systematically sexist and racist? Here's a thought: help everyone, as often as possible! Don't motivate your behaviour based on peoples' identities! But yes, I do agree with the underlying sentiment that follows, I just wish it wasn't prefaced with unnecessary garbage. > Do not critisize or make fun of the technology choices of your peers; for other people will have their own reasons to choose them, and they must be respected. Be prepared to change your mind at any time through learning. Perfect. Why did we need the intro?

a_c 11y ago

> 3. Learn About Software History I was reading about zeromq. From zeromq, I linked to iMatrix, OpenAMQP, GSL, and then Pieter Hintjens and Protocol of Dying. Indeed, history of software, including the people behind it, is no less interesting than the software itself.

zelos 11y ago

My new todo list: 1) Invent time machine 2) Go back in time and make my 24-year-old self read this article.

s3nnyy 11y ago

"Say 'I won’t do what you tell me' and change jobs. There are fantastic workplaces out there; not a lot, but they exist. [...] Do not let a bad job kill your enthusiasm. It is not worth it. Disobey and move on." Especially Europeans have problems thinking like this. I always advise engineers to keep on looking for better offers / jobs the moment they take a new job. Instead many hibernate in a job for 3-5 years without thinking of their careers and hence miss opportunities. Disclaimer: To help engineers finding jobs / working on their careers and support IT-firms to find people, I recently started a small headhunting agency. So mail me, if you look for a tech-job in Zurich. Salaries here after [!] taxes start at 7000 CHF / month. Find my e-mail address in my hn-handle or check out my story "8 reasons why I moved to Switzerland to work in IT" https://medium.com/@iwaninzurich/eight-reasons-why-i-moved-to-switzerland-to-work-in-it-c7ac18af4f90 https://medium.com/@iwaninzurich/eight-reasons-why-i-moved-t...

adaml_623 11y ago
That article could use a followup. Regarding the immigration cap in particular.
- s3nnyy 11y ago
  Actually, I think I do mention the immigration cap in my article. That is even more incentive to come over now rather than in 1-2 years, when the immigration cap for EU citizens will be implemented as planned.
mahyarm 11y ago
Compensation wise it's still a better idea to move to the USA to work at google & co then. A typical goofacesoft sr engineer gets +$250k/yr total compensation + paid for health insurance with a %30-%40 total income tax rate as a sr engineer. Also to start a corporation, you have no capitalization requirements and it's easy-ish to hire canadians, australians and people work who work in a foreign office for +1 yr on a L visa. The waiting times for citizenship in the USA are surprisingly less than switzerland if you're not chinese or indian, which is pretty bad when the USA beats you in citizenship waiting time. And most important of all, there is a shit ton of VC cash to get investment dollars from.

ordbajsare 11y ago

>If you are a white male remember all the privilege you have enjoyed since birth just because you were born that way. It is your responsibility to change the industry and its bias towards more inclusion. FUCK YOU AND YOUR WHITE GUILT BULLSHIT!

barnacs 11y ago

"forget the hype, make sure to learn node and start building bots" That aside, a lot of the more generic points make sense.

arc_of_descent 11y ago

Nice post. A bit nostalgic but we all need a meme to get readers interested. In the OP's case its "I'm getting older, but I still love what I'm doing. Come join me!". What I do when a new tech hype comes along, is allocate myself some time to it. Ok, Webpack? Let me give myself three days (around 20 hours) to check it out. If I don't understand it at first, keep pushing. If after 20 hours, I still don't get it, abandon it and move on. Of course, 20 hours is just an estimate. If after a day, I feel like some magic has taken place (like what Backbone.js did to me), I'm hooked. And yes, definitely gravitate towards a galaxy. Sometimes galaxies do merge and you will reap the benefits :) I'm 38, programming for 15 years. And I still love coding and doing systems stuff.

_yosefk 11y ago

"That means that you she or he gets 100 KCHF per year, but she or he are actually creating a value worth over a million francs. And of course, they get the bonuses at the end of the fiscal year, because, you know, capitalism. Know your worth. Read Karl Marx and Thomas Piketty. Enough said." While neither Karl Marx nor Thomas Piketty have a great track record when it comes to economic policy prescriptions (Dean Baker's opinion on this might be interesting for people who share much of their world view with all three of these economists), will they teach me to better negotiate based on my "knowledge of my worth"? I rather doubt that they will, given that the punchline of much of their writing is that worker compensation necessarily trends towards the subsistence level over time, r>g, etc. etc. Certainly if the point is to "know your worth" in the sense of being able to negotiate a better compensation, a better source ought to be available. Separately, it's an interesting turn of events that fairly politicized economists' writings are now recommended reading for computer programmers. The next logical step is a recommendation to join a political party (certainly joing the political party would help one's career in the USSR where Marx was required reading for people entering the professions.)

lintiness 11y ago
a nice piece on understanding self and the pursuit of a rewarding life in tech or code or whatever (with real examples from said life) diverged in a wood of political lecturing garbage.

batat 11y ago

> Do not worry about hype. Keep doing your thing, keep learning what you were learning, and move on. Thanks, Adrian. Now I have an official excuse for not writing a single app with Angular/React in 2016.

jgrahamc 11y ago

In an email exchange I had with C.A.R. Hoare a couple of years back he said: Paradoxically, I have been working on shared variable concurrency, using a partially ordered trace semantics. Until I retired, I was too frightened to tackle anything so difficult. Definitely life after 40, 50, 60, 70, ...

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buserror 11y ago

I think that misses one big point here; and a point that I live by: Don't waste your neurons and time. Time is the most precious thing you have, so don't waste it learning stuff you won't need. Even if it's shinny. Resist, and for the things you do need, don't become an 'expert' -- pick the things you NEED and scope it well. Then hop along on the new tech that came around... I always see any new thing I take on as an investment, and I try to make it pay down the line... I didn't use to do that, and I'm an expert in a few tech that I had fun learning, but have absolutely zero relevance today. See, I can write Altivec code without the scalar version for example. That was useful for about 2 years...

justinhj 11y ago
This is where luck comes in. If you wait until something is super popular then you lose the advantage of being one of the first people that understand the technology when it goes into production. Also sometimes you may learn something that never pays off but later it feeds into something that does. I spent a lot of time learning Common Lisp and could never apply that knowledge at work until functional programming became more mainstream and Scala/Clojure became acceptable languages for production.

stevetrewick 11y ago

Ignore the hype - but learn everything. Think for yourself - but go with the crowd. And don't forget the sunscreen. Oh, and XML was totally a buzzword in '97.

dfox 11y ago
XML started to be really meaningful buzzword in '98 or '99. (with first really useful implementations in like 2000)
gdubs 11y ago
Came here to post "And don't forget the sunscreen", but did a quick command-f to see if anyone else had already. :) Which, in fact, was released in 1997!

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ManlyBread 11y ago

The article was pretty good until this part. >If you are a white male remember all the privilege you have enjoyed since birth just because you were born that way. It is your responsibility to change the industry and its bias towards more inclusion. I'm from an Eastern Europe and my family never was rich, I had to put in a tremendous effort to even get into the industry. Assuming I got an easy ride simply because I'm white is a pretty racist statement and I find myself surprised that no one is calling out the author on it. >It is your duty to send the elevator down. No, it's not. Just like women don't have any duty to ensure that there's an arbitrary number of men working as models and just like black NBA players have no obligation to ensure that there's enough white guys on the team I have no obligation to worry about some arbitrary quotas.

vanderZwan 11y ago
> I'm from an Eastern Europe and my family never was rich Then the comment does not apply to you. I don't think you quite understand how deep the rabbit hole of this form of "whiteness" goes; as a social construct it implies people from Western Europe or North America. Surely you have experienced how there are people from there who treat Eastern Europe people as less "civilized? Similarly for, say, Mediterranean ethnicities. White male privilege might not (fully) extend to you, but that does not disprove its existence.
- ManlyBread 11y ago
  >> I'm from an Eastern Europe and my family never was rich >Then the comment does not apply to you. It does, I'm white. The author specifically mentions "white male".
  - wmccullough 11y ago
    But it doesn't. He may not have specified "from North America", but that's what he meant.
    - stray 11y ago

ljw1001 11y ago

I found the advice to be quite a mixed bag, but um, having just turned 42, the OP knows very little about being a developer after 40. The article is about what he learned as an under-40 developer.

fecklessyouth 11y ago

>The reason for this lies in the fact that, as the Romans said in the past, Nil nove sul sole This is from the Old Testament. http://biblehub.com/ecclesiastes/1-9.htm http://biblehub.com/ecclesiastes/1-9.htm

patwolf 11y ago

>Learn all you can about LLVM While I'm sure LLVM is an important technology, I don't feel it's everyone's job to learn and know everything there is to know about it. There will perhaps be a niche group of developers making cool things with LLVM, most developers can get along just fine without knowing anything about it.

avoutthere 11y ago
"Forget the Hype" followed by LLVM hype.

philbarr 11y ago

> A British roundabout with 6 intersections... There's one of those in Hemel Hempstead. And surprisingly it works really well... On a related note, if you have the chance to go to Hemel Hempstead, don't.

walshemj 11y ago
I think its only 5 now - and the fun thing about the magic roundabout is you can go either way round. I must admit I used to when riding a bike round there chicken out and use the under pass.

known 11y ago

Within in the context of H1B it's a different game altogether.

programminggeek 11y ago

It is not our duty to do anything. If you want to do something fine. But honestly, I work my butt off to get what I've got and I'm perfectly happy to help others that do the same. I refuse to help someone just because they are female or a minority just because they are female or a minority. I also refuse to help people who won't help themselves. Those who want to be great, I will help them every way I can. It doesn't matter gender or ethnicity. It's about work ethic.

manishsharan 11y ago

As a developer over 40, my biggest challenge is actually that the management has come to expect weekend work and late nights as the norm. As someone with a family , I can't put in those hours every day and every weekend. Single programmers who can put in those kind of hours are rewarded and those who cant are singled out for ridicule or "performance concern chats with manager". Projects have gone agile and they have not accounted for the unexpected shit that happens, low level functional designs seem to have fallen out of fashion and the deliverable deadlines have become ultra aggressive. And the mangers' attitude is that "they can shake any tree and it rains qualified programmer resumes". Here in Toronto, there is a company called Allegis and all major employers post their developer job here. The headhunters are plugged into Allegis and they call you based on keyword match. Have you ever seen poor people huddled outside HomeDepot, hoping to be picked up? Thats what it like to be a developer searching for a job in my town. Most enterprise dev jobs are focused on a very narrow set of skills; so it doesn't matter how good you are with designing solutions or algorithms you know -- what matters is do you know java/c#/angular(new) ? And thats all that matters for Allegis keyword match. You are probably thinking I can learn more technologies ; what I am pointing out is that enterprise s/w development process is based on the fundamental principle of getting barely skilled people who can put in the hours and keep their mouth shut. But these jobs pay a lot more than startup jobs and have a lot more security.

pc86 11y ago
This is probably an unpopular opinion here, but only a very small subset of developers need to design algorithms or even know any of them by heart. Disregarding a few years that was mostly WordPress consulting, my experience is largely enterprise C#. Lots of line of business applications, glorified CRUD apps, and some client work. Zero need for any ability to write a BST or radix sort. If you're working for SpaceX, or Twitter, or a Big 4, of course you should know those things. But most developers don't work for one of those companies. The vast majority of programming is done to further a business other than programming.
- deleted 11y ago
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benten10 11y ago

Hahahahaha, loooving the comments. ABSOLUTELY loving them. Wherein white men complain calling them white man is racist and in fact THEY are the real victims here who had to work HARD despite all the NEGATIVE STEREOTYPES against men in tech. Keep chugging mah chums, keep chugging!

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daxfohl 11y ago

This had nothing to do with being a developer after 40. tldr: Banal, overconfident advice on the subject of a software career, devolving into political rants at times.

dhogan 11y ago

>help a younger developer by becoming their mentor (do not do this before the age of 30, though.) Why the age of 30? Just curious.

AnimalMuppet 11y ago
Because before then, you don't know enough to be an effective mentor. ("30" here is a proxy for a level of experience.)

hartator 11y ago

"Nil nove sul sole" means nothing new under the sun.

nucleardonuts 11y ago

I grow weary of hearing about "white privilege". I likewise grow weary of any of today's politically correct messages: women in combat, bathroom bills, work quotas, transvestite rights. It's all BS. I grew up a military brat. We didn't have a lot of money. I wore hand-me-downs, had iron-on patches on my knees. My family could not afford to send me to college, so I served in the military to get the GI Bill and worked my own way through college. I'm over 40, in IT and no one ever gave me hand out in relation to any job or education. Like an earlier poster said, I'm under no obligation to do anything. I believe in hard work. No one should be given a free ride because they are black, homosexual, female, whatever. Work your ass off to get where you want to be. Full stop. No one is under a moral or other obligation to get you in the door or ensure fair play. I'm not an asshole to people, but everyone has the same opportunities. I realize the military is not for everyone, but young men especially can really benefit. You can do a four-year hitch and have your college paid for. If you like it, you could re-up as an officer and the sky is the limit. The problem with people today is they have a sense of entitlement that is misplaced. No one owes anyone anything other than moral decency: please, thank you, that kind of thing. Work hard, play hard. Life is better without handouts. You have a sense of fulfillment when you pull yourself up by your bootstraps.

african_cheetah 11y ago
> everyone has the same opportunities. Not really. That's what it means. Being white makes it slightly easier to get some opportunities.
- CamperZero 11y ago
  Two people of the same socioeconomic standing but of different races. One has a lower bar to entry into college because of affirmative action and a easier time getting a high paying job because of diversity needs. Who has the privilege here?
  - d4rkph1b3r 11y ago
    Trick question, nobody fucking knows without knowing their entire history.

mindcrime 11y ago

Being a 40+ developer myself, I find myself largely agreeing with this post. I guess I could quibble over some small details, but by and large, I think the author is spot on. The one thing I'll add to this, is to say that, for devs like us, things like Coursera, Udacity, EdX, etc. are really valuable. When you're a mid-career professional who already has strong technical chops in at least one area, "on demand education" like this is super valuable in multiple regards: 1. It's much more accessible since you don't have to go sit in class, on campus, every day, etc. You can fit it around your existing life much more easily. 2. It can serve as a nice way to start "bridging" to a new area. For example, if you're already, say, a skilled Java developer and you want to start moving into Data Science, MOOCs offer a nice way to pick up some additional credentials to help that transition. People argue about the value of certificates from Coursera and the like, and that's fair. I think you don't want something like that to be the only credential you have, if possible. But taken as a complement to your existing credentials, experience and skills, I believe these things can be very useful. 3. Related to (2) above, but MOOCs can be a nice way to add complementary education outside of tech altogether. If you're a developer who aspires to eventually move into management or whatever, consider taking business classes from Coursera/EdX/Udacity as well. There are some really nice offerings out there, including a complete (accredited) MBA program that you can do (partly) through Coursera in conjunction with the University of Illinois. Or maybe you're a Java developer (just an example, I don't mean to pick on Java people, as "I is one") who thinks that something to do with synthetic biology is going to be "the next big thing", but doesn't want to go back to school for a biology degree... great, there's a ton of life sciences / biology / chemistry /etc. stuff that you can take online if you want to start positioning yourself for something like that. Let me also add this: I totally agree that you don't need to go "all in" on every new tech that comes out, and try to ride the hype wave for everything new. But, I think it's smart to at least explore (many|most|some|??) of the trendy new stuff, to a limited depth... at least dip your toes in the water, do the "Hello world of XXXX" where XXXX is Swift, or R, or Rust, or Scala, or Node, or Go or whatever. At least give yourself a fair chance to evaluate the new stuff, decide if you feel like it's worth investing more in based on direct experience, and at least get a feel for the toolchain and what-not. From there, you can kind of monitor what's going on around you and decide if/when to go deeper with new technology XXXX. Yes, doing all this requires an investment of some time, but that's part of the cost of keeping your value up. Of course, the truth is, most of this goes equally for the "under 40" crowd as well. But the whole "keep learning new stuff" thing probably becomes a little more important as you get older. There might be exceptions like the whole "COBOL programmer who gets paid big bucks because nobody new is learning COBOL anymore" but I'd consider those situations to be exceptions.

NiftyFifty 11y ago

Thank, God ... the world doesn't work like this. Grabbing my coffee and going to my privileged position as an American .... just because I'm white shouldn't be held against me. Stop calling me "white privilege". It shows you have no lack of motivation to work yourself AROUND a problem, vs. pointing at things of barrier. The tech industry SOLVES problems, not creates them.

vinceguidry 11y ago

> "Ok, let's make a rails app" > "Oh, I need rails first" > "Oh, I need rbenv first" > "Oh I need brew" > "Oh I need xcode tools" As a Rails dev, this made me chuckle, yes, I've put a lot of hours into troubleshooting dev setups. But this is the wrong example. All of these are installed with one line on the terminal. And really, there are far simpler web stacks to pick up without even having to leave Ruby. Sinatra on system Ruby works just fine. All you do is 'gem install sinatra', open up a text editor and go. Really, the complexity you have to watch out for is the complexity you impose yourself. Choosing the wrong tools for the job or the wrong abstractions. For many applications, Rails is overkill.

danielweber 11y ago
That involves knowing the one line on the terminal, and when you google "rails set up" you will get a bunch of out-of-date tutorials, and not knowing rails you won't know which is out-of-date. On the other hand, 30 year old C code will often compile right out of the box, because the people maintaining them weren't chasing the New Flashy every year. The modern systems suck in terms of maintainability.
nickthemagicman 11y ago
Lol as opposed to PHP where you just drop the folder into Apache folder and you're done.

emodendroket 11y ago

> The reason for this lies in the fact that, as the Romans said in the past, Nil nove sul sole. This is actually originally from Ecclesiastes, not the Romans.

daveheq 11y ago

You owe the world nothing for being born white, and hiring people based on their skin color is racist.

EdiX 11y ago

> as the Romans said in the past, Nil nove sul sole They didn't say that.

sanpan 11y ago

I just want to say thanks for introducing me to ponysay. My terminal was dull until you all shared its magic with me.

mooreds 11y ago

I enjoyed this. Could have just as easily been called "Being an experienced developer" because age doesn't factor in to his message that much.

okreallywtf 11y ago

Did I just stumble on slashdot? I much prefer the discourse on HN but the reaction to "PC culture" and "White privilege" is basically the same everywhere. It has never been supposed to mean anything about an individual, and yet that is ALWAYS how it seems to be taken. We (as white and or males) can't help but see things from our individual perspective and take offense at the implication we ever had anything easier than anyone else. I agree with others in the thread, we just need to throw away the word white privilege and come up with something else because it has been totally poisoned. I'm not saying there aren't overzealous "social justice warriors" that haven't contributed to the misunderstanding of the word. Just remember, when people use the word white privilege, THEY ARE NOT REFERRING TO YOU AS AN INDIVIDUAL FOR THE LOVE OF GOD.

Karunamon 11y ago
yet that is ALWAYS how it seems to be taken This is a clue that perhaps your terminology is loaded, inflammatory, and should be changed. I find that there's very little value in reasoning about race as a collective, since it's usually just a (overly) reductive variable for socioeconomic status, upbringing, or environment. If you mean those things, say those things. Attaching a racial modifier to a term and then expecting members of that race to not feel described or targeted by it makes no sense. (And that goes double when that term is used, often, as an attack, not in the thoughtful way you describe, but that is a rant for another time.)
- okreallywtf 11y ago
  You've actually hit on the exact point, there is no point in reasoning about race, but as much as we wish that people didn't see race, the fact is they do. That is the entire point of the term. Because of your race, people do reason about your race, and do make assumptions about your socioeconomic status, upbringing, and environment. I'll grant you that there are (probably a very few) people who do get some satisfaction out of feeling like a victim but otherwise, nobody is more tired of reasoning about race in america than black americans (who are of course not the only discriminated against minority). You seem to be implying that america is post racial and some of just won't let it go.

aerovistae 11y ago

> You could experience that right here in Switzerland. lol

iLemming 11y ago

you know what? f... you people. I was hoping to know your opinions about technological choices and things you think would be relevant 20 years from now. And what do I get? 40 f...ing pages of gender and race inequality crap. The article is not about that, damn it!

Kequc 11y ago
Don't put things into articles people are going to talk about that you don't want people to talk about. There are two topics in the article and the discussion here broaches both.

iLemming 11y ago

Kami_sama 11y ago

alexandercrohde 11y ago

---Disobey authority. Say “fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me” and change jobs. Challenge authority, but don't be an ass about it. Simply try to help them understand that you are doing them a favor by challenging them. Perhaps say, "Do you mind if I weigh in on that?" If they aren't interested in your opinion still follow up with "I understand you've thought about this, but I've also given this a lot of thought and I also have a lot of experience around this and I've seen it be a problem before."

magni- 11y ago

It's sad that the majority of the discussion from this post is people misunderstanding the term "white privilege" and getting so defensive about it. Changing topics: that was a great read. The links were also great reads and rereads. What do people think of Joel's six mistakes from the "great software takes ten years", sixteen years later? http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000017.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000017.html

pasquinelli 11y ago

"you were, are and will be a software developer, that is, a relatively expensive factory worker, whose tasks your managers would be happy to offshore no matter what they tell you." this is exactly my experience. writing software really doesn't require any great creative mind or cleverness. i'm a pretty mediocre programmer. i got roped into programming as a kid by, first of all because i wanted to make video games, but then once i'd dipped my toe in i found learning new, exotic (seeming) ideas and making clever solutions to problems was a lot of fun in and of itself. but i can think of only one time i got paid to do anything that felt like that: working on a tetris game with bombliss, without the official tetris rules. the rules of tetris are surprisingly deep and refined, in case you didn't know, so that endeavor was utterly insane and disastrous, which was the general character of the company i was working for. but still, it was a lot of fun playing physicist from the tetris universe, trying to infer the rules through experimentation. to write software, once you have the skill down, is really just about doing the work. it doesn't require any insight, unless you intend to write good software, but no one cares about good software. no cares about the software at all. they have things they want to do, and the software, the making of it, is, if anything an impediment. so is the person making it.

themodelplumber 11y ago
While it probably confirms a lot of fears around here, this comment is pretty hyperbolic. That is to say, it captures the lowest lows (replaceable cog) and some of the highest highs (experimental physicist in Tetris universe). But most of us are not really suffering under those conditions, except (critically!) in an imagined way. > it doesn't require any insight, unless you intend to write good software, but no one cares about good software. This last statement is demonstrably false. Many people care about good software. Just like they care about good cars, good vacations, good hot dogs. But still, grumpy developers will upvote this and believe in it. They then become a self-fulfilling prophecy. They see threats that don't exist, then at some point they call out those threats and in doing so cash in their chips. I've seen many smart developers miss great opportunities in doing this. They could be learning to make their own terms and push back, taking advantage of high demand. Instead they become a plumber, landscaper, or Ph.D., thinking the grass really is greener over there. Well, maybe so. But that mentality has not changed, so what are the real chances?

abc_lisper 11y ago

Absolutely love this guy! Somehow I feel lonely when I say open-offices are an absolute evil. Thanks for raising that point!

ak39 11y ago

I'd only add one more point to this otherwise excellent list of advice for programmers doing it for the long haul: 13. Strive to become as proficient as you can in the business domain in which you ply your programming. Such proficiency can be a crucial asset if you have plans to start your own consultancy or to produce specialised products and solutions for niche markets.

frostymarvelous 11y ago

>Software companies have become sweatshops where you are supposed to justify your absurdly high salary with insane hours and unreasonable expectations. Sadly, I've felt this way for the past two months since I took my new job. I had to take a pay cut for it. Sadly, I think the new company thinks I'm being overpaid and the demands are crazy. All of a sudden, I understand so many of the WTFs on TDWTF!

deleted 11y ago
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