5 ms·

so you're the exception to the norm; you're one data point against... ;)

epalmer 10y ago
You might be right. I run circles around some of the youngsters I work with. Yet I still feel like an imposter.
skrebbel 10y ago
is he though? i mean, are you sure about the norm? meet a young colleague who doesn't understand search, you'll say "he has no clue about search". meet an older colleague and you might say "he's too old to understand search".
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- saghm 10y ago
  Reminds me of http://xkcd.com/385/ http://xkcd.com/385/
blueatlas 10y ago
I am 55, CS degree, and also a digital native. I run a digital agency. In this past year, I've been the technical decision maker for development efforts for over 20 web sites/applications, full stack. I can work with decision makers, and I can deep dive to any place in the web stack. I was the technical lead on a cloud deployment for a $1bn government contractor. I have a business partner and am also in the early stages of a SaaS startup. My point. Nobody will ever dictate what I can and cannot do in this complex, wonderful, and growing digital space. Ever.
otakucode 10y ago
The norm? Which would be the general public? I think you will find anyone who can solve an equation is an exception to the norm. A computer programmer of ANY competence, even an amateur 12 year old, is 3 standard deviations outside the norm. And if you're going to restrict your norm to just computer professionals... you'd best run some numbers before making assumptions.
cshipley 10y ago
I am 49 and have a CS Degree, ~25 years experience. I run my own mobile/web development company out of my home, making more money than I ever have before. I've been in business for about 3 years and each year my revenue increases by 20-30% I am principle architect and coder. In order to do this, I have had to learn new languages, frameworks and new ways of thinking about things. Some of those "new" things weren't difficult, they just required tweaking old ways of looking at things. For example, older mobile devices are resource constrained. Having to think about conservation while coding isn't new. I started my career coding on shitty MS Dos system where if you had 640K of memory, it was a high-end machine. The tweaking comes in with the addition of other constrains such as battery life, coalescing radio usage and the fact that the OS can decide to shut down your app and restart it at any time, but the user's expectation is it should be the way the just left it. Continually learning and reinventing myself is just the way things are now. If you haven't had to deal with that yet, just wait. It will come.
- pcurve 10y ago
  You are a hero. I won't be hitting your age for more than a decade, but you are giving me hope.
rimantas 10y ago
Young ones may be born into this. Older ones are the ones who created this.
spc476 10y ago
I'm a developer and am currently 47 (about to be 48). I'm the youngest developer in my department (basically call processing) where we work with C, C++ and Lua (which I introduced into the company). Down the hall is another department writing software to be embedded in Android phones (Java, obviously). With one exception (I think he's 30 ... maybe) the average age is mid-50s. The department working on the UI (HTML, CSS and Javascript) are in their 40s, like the department working on the (non-call processing) servers (Java mostly).

You might be right. I run circles around some of the youngsters I work with. Yet I still feel like an imposter.

is he though? i mean, are you sure about the norm? meet a young colleague who doesn't understand search, you'll say "he has no clue about search". meet an older colleague and you might say "he's too old to understand search".

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
saghm 10y ago
Reminds me of http://xkcd.com/385/ http://xkcd.com/385/

blueatlas 10y ago

I am 55, CS degree, and also a digital native. I run a digital agency. In this past year, I've been the technical decision maker for development efforts for over 20 web sites/applications, full stack. I can work with decision makers, and I can deep dive to any place in the web stack. I was the technical lead on a cloud deployment for a $1bn government contractor. I have a business partner and am also in the early stages of a SaaS startup. My point. Nobody will ever dictate what I can and cannot do in this complex, wonderful, and growing digital space. Ever.

otakucode 10y ago

The norm? Which would be the general public? I think you will find anyone who can solve an equation is an exception to the norm. A computer programmer of ANY competence, even an amateur 12 year old, is 3 standard deviations outside the norm. And if you're going to restrict your norm to just computer professionals... you'd best run some numbers before making assumptions.

cshipley 10y ago

I am 49 and have a CS Degree, ~25 years experience. I run my own mobile/web development company out of my home, making more money than I ever have before. I've been in business for about 3 years and each year my revenue increases by 20-30% I am principle architect and coder. In order to do this, I have had to learn new languages, frameworks and new ways of thinking about things. Some of those "new" things weren't difficult, they just required tweaking old ways of looking at things. For example, older mobile devices are resource constrained. Having to think about conservation while coding isn't new. I started my career coding on shitty MS Dos system where if you had 640K of memory, it was a high-end machine. The tweaking comes in with the addition of other constrains such as battery life, coalescing radio usage and the fact that the OS can decide to shut down your app and restart it at any time, but the user's expectation is it should be the way the just left it. Continually learning and reinventing myself is just the way things are now. If you haven't had to deal with that yet, just wait. It will come.

pcurve 10y ago
You are a hero. I won't be hitting your age for more than a decade, but you are giving me hope.

rimantas 10y ago

Young ones may be born into this. Older ones are the ones who created this.

spc476 10y ago

I'm a developer and am currently 47 (about to be 48). I'm the youngest developer in my department (basically call processing) where we work with C, C++ and Lua (which I introduced into the company). Down the hall is another department writing software to be embedded in Android phones (Java, obviously). With one exception (I think he's 30 ... maybe) the average age is mid-50s. The department working on the UI (HTML, CSS and Javascript) are in their 40s, like the department working on the (non-call processing) servers (Java mostly).