5 ms·

You must be 50... and you're still on HN! Are you still an engineer? If so, what stack are you using now?

wainstead 9y ago
I can't speak for jandrese, but I'm over 50, was taught Pascal in college, and of course I read Hacker News! (And Reddit, Fark, and Slashdot beforehand). I'm surprised you're surprised. (I'm in a Python stack these days).
jandrese 9y ago
You are off by about a decade. FreeBSD 2.0 was released in the mid 90s. I still skim Slashdot too. Most of the time I'm working on ancient versions of RHEL that are never connected to the internet so I don't exactly get to use "stacks" or anything that wants to pull code from Github. If it doesn't come on the RHEL 5.5 disk it's not available. You might be surprised how much you can do with a modest CGI script, a touch of JS, and some basic styling CSS.
- whatyoucantsay 9y ago
  I clearly misjudged the time of Pascal's popularity and have never heard of RHEL but thanks for the response! What is Slashdot's strength from your POV?
  - gardnr 9y ago
    Slashdot is kind of like Mel Gibson. It was cool when it first came out and now it's still around.
  - khedoros1 9y ago
    > have never heard of RHEL But surely you've heard of Red Hat itself? In the early 2000s, Red Hat Linux broke into a couple directions: "Fedora Linux" as the community version of the OS, and "Red Hat Enterprise Linux" as the supported, enterprise-level version of the OS (and CentOS as the community-supported version of RHEL).
- jandrese 9y ago
  RHEL is RedHat Enterprise Linux. RHEL 5.5 came out in 2010, to give you an idea of the speed of the IT department in some places. Slashdot picks up stories that Ars and HN miss sometimes. It just adds some breadth to my tech news sources.
- cjsuk 9y ago
  I miss the days when you had to live off the manpages and vendor packages. As a former Solaris admin in a defence sector company, we were 100% airgapped. Mobile phones were handed in as you walked into the security office. None of that github internet stuff, no googling a problem. The place had literally piles of OReilly books and that was it. Those were gold. When I got home I ran NetBSD on salvaged sun4c and sun4m kit.
woodrowbarlow 9y ago
i'm 25 and my first high school programming class was taught in borland turbo pascal as well. we did one year of pascal, one year of C, one year of Java, and then a seminar course in python.
- goatlover 9y ago
  Which one did you think would be best for a first year language? I was taught Pascal first, then C++. Pascal really helped with learning the basics. I think jumping right into C++ or Java would have been confusing.
  - woodrowbarlow 9y ago
    i am happy that i learned pascal first. the focus on types, as the linked article states, was healthy for me. we didn't get into pointer manipulation in pascal, though. i'm a bit glad we waited until C for that because the "everything is an int" mentality of C helped me understand storage classes.
noonespecial 9y ago
Just crested 40 here. Was taught turbo pascal in high-school and college. Mostly use Node/JavaScript/C++ now but did a bunch of industrial controls stuff where that pascal really paid off for me.
bpyne 9y ago
I'm 50, still on HN, and still an engineer (although I do a lot more ops and analysis nowadays). As far as stacks go, I use whatever suits the application I want to write. I use: - PL/SQL (mandated by my employer) for generating large batch files in an ETL process - Python for validating the files mentioned above - I'm evaluating the OCaml compiler set for a language I'd like to create - I'm interested in Elixir for back end processes - R for ML - Prolog for prototyping a rules engine that may become the seed for a product - I'd like to get familiar with a JS-based web framework like Angular 2 or React or one of the other ones I've been reading about - I'm looking at Flash to develop a game with my daughter, who seems interested in coding. I think it's important for older developers to assure younger ones that you remain interested in trying new tools and technologies as you get older. The curiosity and passion for creating don't abate. But, after you stay with an employer for a while and develop critical applications for it, then you get caught in maintaining it in that technology. Essentially, you get frozen in time in a technology stack due to the success of the app you wrote. You also begin spending more time on ops and support. But, you pick and choose times to introduce newer technologies, which you largely have to evaluate on your own time. You don't have to leave the field or slink into irrelevance just because you're older.
virgulino 9y ago
Coming from Microsoft's MSX-Basic, Turbo Pascal 3 was my first "grown up's language", also on 8-bit MSX computer. And I'm not 50 yet...
markb139 9y ago
52 here. Did some Pascal at university on a VAX. Currently working in python in fintech environment.
pjmlp 9y ago
Above 40+, mostly Java and .NET languages, with some ocasional C++ thrown in when low level stuff is called for. JavaScript when doing web development, TrasactSQL, PL/SQL and pgSQL for database manipulation. Plus lots of other languages and tech, keeping an eye on what might be interesting to focus or advocate to customers.
Sindisil 9y ago
Checking in as another 50 year old, still on HN, still an "engineer", experienced enough to use tools, not "stack"s. Admittedly I didn't start with Pascal, but rather with BASIC and several assembly languages (1802, Z80, & 6809 were among the first I used). I learned Pascal after C, actually. I like things about both, but often wish that Wirthian languages would have won out. FWIW, these days I primarily use Java, C, C++ (when I must), and a smattering of other languages, with libraries and such chosen to match the problem at hand and the environment in which it must be solved.
- merb 9y ago
  well I'm 27 and started with turbo pascal/delphi and I didn't hated it. I still have the programming book, but never looked at it again in the last 10 years.
nl 9y ago
Over 40, sometimes engineer still. First job was Delphi 2, but moved quickly to Delphi 3. My stack now is... diverse. Python, Spark, Java, React, Node, PyTorch, Scikit and occasionally R.

I can't speak for jandrese, but I'm over 50, was taught Pascal in college, and of course I read Hacker News! (And Reddit, Fark, and Slashdot beforehand). I'm surprised you're surprised. (I'm in a Python stack these days).

jandrese 9y ago

You are off by about a decade. FreeBSD 2.0 was released in the mid 90s. I still skim Slashdot too. Most of the time I'm working on ancient versions of RHEL that are never connected to the internet so I don't exactly get to use "stacks" or anything that wants to pull code from Github. If it doesn't come on the RHEL 5.5 disk it's not available. You might be surprised how much you can do with a modest CGI script, a touch of JS, and some basic styling CSS.

whatyoucantsay 9y ago
I clearly misjudged the time of Pascal's popularity and have never heard of RHEL but thanks for the response! What is Slashdot's strength from your POV?
- gardnr 9y ago
  Slashdot is kind of like Mel Gibson. It was cool when it first came out and now it's still around.
- khedoros1 9y ago
  > have never heard of RHEL But surely you've heard of Red Hat itself? In the early 2000s, Red Hat Linux broke into a couple directions: "Fedora Linux" as the community version of the OS, and "Red Hat Enterprise Linux" as the supported, enterprise-level version of the OS (and CentOS as the community-supported version of RHEL).
jandrese 9y ago
RHEL is RedHat Enterprise Linux. RHEL 5.5 came out in 2010, to give you an idea of the speed of the IT department in some places. Slashdot picks up stories that Ars and HN miss sometimes. It just adds some breadth to my tech news sources.
cjsuk 9y ago
I miss the days when you had to live off the manpages and vendor packages. As a former Solaris admin in a defence sector company, we were 100% airgapped. Mobile phones were handed in as you walked into the security office. None of that github internet stuff, no googling a problem. The place had literally piles of OReilly books and that was it. Those were gold. When I got home I ran NetBSD on salvaged sun4c and sun4m kit.

woodrowbarlow 9y ago

i'm 25 and my first high school programming class was taught in borland turbo pascal as well. we did one year of pascal, one year of C, one year of Java, and then a seminar course in python.

goatlover 9y ago
Which one did you think would be best for a first year language? I was taught Pascal first, then C++. Pascal really helped with learning the basics. I think jumping right into C++ or Java would have been confusing.
- woodrowbarlow 9y ago
  i am happy that i learned pascal first. the focus on types, as the linked article states, was healthy for me. we didn't get into pointer manipulation in pascal, though. i'm a bit glad we waited until C for that because the "everything is an int" mentality of C helped me understand storage classes.

noonespecial 9y ago

Just crested 40 here. Was taught turbo pascal in high-school and college. Mostly use Node/JavaScript/C++ now but did a bunch of industrial controls stuff where that pascal really paid off for me.

bpyne 9y ago

I'm 50, still on HN, and still an engineer (although I do a lot more ops and analysis nowadays). As far as stacks go, I use whatever suits the application I want to write. I use: - PL/SQL (mandated by my employer) for generating large batch files in an ETL process - Python for validating the files mentioned above - I'm evaluating the OCaml compiler set for a language I'd like to create - I'm interested in Elixir for back end processes - R for ML - Prolog for prototyping a rules engine that may become the seed for a product - I'd like to get familiar with a JS-based web framework like Angular 2 or React or one of the other ones I've been reading about - I'm looking at Flash to develop a game with my daughter, who seems interested in coding. I think it's important for older developers to assure younger ones that you remain interested in trying new tools and technologies as you get older. The curiosity and passion for creating don't abate. But, after you stay with an employer for a while and develop critical applications for it, then you get caught in maintaining it in that technology. Essentially, you get frozen in time in a technology stack due to the success of the app you wrote. You also begin spending more time on ops and support. But, you pick and choose times to introduce newer technologies, which you largely have to evaluate on your own time. You don't have to leave the field or slink into irrelevance just because you're older.

virgulino 9y ago

Coming from Microsoft's MSX-Basic, Turbo Pascal 3 was my first "grown up's language", also on 8-bit MSX computer. And I'm not 50 yet...

markb139 9y ago

52 here. Did some Pascal at university on a VAX. Currently working in python in fintech environment.

pjmlp 9y ago

Above 40+, mostly Java and .NET languages, with some ocasional C++ thrown in when low level stuff is called for. JavaScript when doing web development, TrasactSQL, PL/SQL and pgSQL for database manipulation. Plus lots of other languages and tech, keeping an eye on what might be interesting to focus or advocate to customers.

Sindisil 9y ago

Checking in as another 50 year old, still on HN, still an "engineer", experienced enough to use tools, not "stack"s. Admittedly I didn't start with Pascal, but rather with BASIC and several assembly languages (1802, Z80, & 6809 were among the first I used). I learned Pascal after C, actually. I like things about both, but often wish that Wirthian languages would have won out. FWIW, these days I primarily use Java, C, C++ (when I must), and a smattering of other languages, with libraries and such chosen to match the problem at hand and the environment in which it must be solved.

merb 9y ago
well I'm 27 and started with turbo pascal/delphi and I didn't hated it. I still have the programming book, but never looked at it again in the last 10 years.

nl 9y ago

Over 40, sometimes engineer still. First job was Delphi 2, but moved quickly to Delphi 3. My stack now is... diverse. Python, Spark, Java, React, Node, PyTorch, Scikit and occasionally R.