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What I really enjoy about being 51 is being able to understand both extremes you describe -- as well as being able to understand and remember what many other se

What I really enjoy about being 51 is being able to understand both extremes you describe -- as well as being able to understand and remember what many other segments of life was like. It gives you quite a broad view! At times it feels like standing on a mountain and seeing a vast landscape that you've crossed to get here -- and the mountain path ahead that leads to new heights. There's also the joy of playing to type for the kids. So many times, they look at you as if you were some weird creature from a zoo. It's quite funny because you can get away with a lot. Hell, they don't know. I have no doubt that skills and abilities decrease with age, but quite frankly, if you started out way ahead of the norm, by the time you hit your 50s and 60s you're still going to be on par or ahead of most of the population anyway. So when a dear friend that's in their 20s or 30s asks me how I'm doing, I have quite a bit of fun describing some sort of horrible body issues -- until they realize I'm pulling their leg. And when I hit my 60s and 70s, if I last that long, you can be sure I'll be screwing with people who might think I have dementia. Screw 'em. More fun times ahead.

brudgers 10y ago
At 51, I've learned to enjoy the fact that there are about as many different kinds of people in the world as there are people. A surprisingly vast number of them are surprisingly intelligent if I am just willing to listen and learn and have an open mind. Anyway, getting older tends to beat the alternatives.
greenhatman 10y ago
>I have no doubt that skills and abilities decrease with age. I wonder if this will just be true for your generation. Because of computers and the programming industry only really taking off when you were already a few years into your career. I can imagine that someone who started their career with programming early and just continues with it might just keep widening the gap between them and newcomers. Which might only change if there is another shakeup in our lifetimes. My boss from my previous job is in his mid forties and extremely good technically. Intimidatingly so. I imagine I can become the same if I keep going at it the way I do now. I'm 31.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- beat 10y ago
  At my second serious job in the late '90s, my manager was the programmer who wrote the linker for Cray unix when he was there. Great programmer. Now I'm the old guy who intimidates they young'ns. Being a good programmer has very little to do with following current trends in tools. Tools can be learned, especially if they don't require a fundamental shift in thinking. I've lived through a project of watching lifer COBOL programmers involved in transitioning their systems to Java. Some simply couldn't learn Java at all, it was such an alien way of thinking. Some of them quit or retired, some became analysts for the project, because they understood the business that was encoded in those bazillion lines of twenty year old COBOL. Now I'm starting to see a generation of early Java legacy apps rewritten in Node or whatever. What goes around...

brudgers 10y ago

At 51, I've learned to enjoy the fact that there are about as many different kinds of people in the world as there are people. A surprisingly vast number of them are surprisingly intelligent if I am just willing to listen and learn and have an open mind. Anyway, getting older tends to beat the alternatives.

greenhatman 10y ago

>I have no doubt that skills and abilities decrease with age. I wonder if this will just be true for your generation. Because of computers and the programming industry only really taking off when you were already a few years into your career. I can imagine that someone who started their career with programming early and just continues with it might just keep widening the gap between them and newcomers. Which might only change if there is another shakeup in our lifetimes. My boss from my previous job is in his mid forties and extremely good technically. Intimidatingly so. I imagine I can become the same if I keep going at it the way I do now. I'm 31.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
beat 10y ago
At my second serious job in the late '90s, my manager was the programmer who wrote the linker for Cray unix when he was there. Great programmer. Now I'm the old guy who intimidates they young'ns. Being a good programmer has very little to do with following current trends in tools. Tools can be learned, especially if they don't require a fundamental shift in thinking. I've lived through a project of watching lifer COBOL programmers involved in transitioning their systems to Java. Some simply couldn't learn Java at all, it was such an alien way of thinking. Some of them quit or retired, some became analysts for the project, because they understood the business that was encoded in those bazillion lines of twenty year old COBOL. Now I'm starting to see a generation of early Java legacy apps rewritten in Node or whatever. What goes around...