4 ms·

I believed that age mattered until I met a super-coder for the first time. He is over 60 years old, and completes entire projects by himself. A team of five dec

I believed that age mattered until I met a super-coder for the first time. He is over 60 years old, and completes entire projects by himself. A team of five decent programmers would likely complete these projects late and over budget. He has high standards, a razor-like focus on implementing The Right Thing, has a great eye for reusing old code, and isn't afraid to split the world apart to make life easier for the client. I'm glad I met him as early in my career as I did; I unlearned a lot of falsehoods about software engineering.

darwinGod 16y ago
That is a strong departure from the stereotype! I'm really interested to know more.. Does this person have a blog?What type of projects has he worked on? Would be great be if you could elaborate on what had unlearned!
- BrandonM 16y ago
  I would also be interested in hearing some of the lessons the grandfather poster learned, and the preconceptions he unlearned. Maybe a blog post is in order? Edit: I removed a rant that I had here which went too far off-topic.
  - solutionyogi 16y ago
    I don't think darwinGod was trying to put the person down because he doesn't have a blog. He was rather interested in learning more about this person and his experiences and the lessons which jakevoytko learned from him. I think your rant is misplaced.
    - BrandonM 16y ago
      No, I don't think he was trying to put him down either, that's not why I made the comment. darwinGod's comment inspired my line of thinking, so I inappropriately replied to it. Since my comment was so off-topic, I decided to delete most of it and reply to the parent. Sorry for making your comment seem out of place.
- deadmansshoes 16y ago
  For a moment there I thought you were asking if Babbage had a blog...
kenjackson 16y ago
The big problem with age is focus (and price). I find myself a lot less interested in coding 18 hours a day just for kicks. It's like pizza when you're a kid. You could eat it every day for every meal. As an adult, you still like pizza, but even twice a week feels like too much. And in most regards, I think its fine. I had my day of the 90 hour work week. I'll let the new guys take their turn.
- maxawaytoolong 16y ago
  I actually think the problem with programming and age is that it's not very healthy. I've sat on my ass for so long I'm not convinced I will live into old age. I'm only in my mid 30s and I already have high blood pressure, a bad back, bad eyes, my brain is scrambled from too many inane emails and meetings, etc. Babbage had the advantage of being able to think on his feet and not have 1000 distractions. I know a lot of old tinkerers, including my grandfather. I don't know a lot of old office stiffs, they seem to die of heart attacks and strokes. Two of my uncles were career programmers, and they are a mess, health-wise.
  - kenjackson 16y ago
    Yeah, when the walk from my desk to the candy bar vending machine started to make me perspire is when I thought I should start exercising more. Now I jog to the candy bar vending machine -- I think it's helping. :-)
  - mcav 16y ago
    There's nothing inherently unhealthy about being a programmer. If you take care of yourself, you can still program a lot without adverse health effects: - Take regular breaks - Practice good ergonomics - Exercise regularly - Eat healthily - Avoid stress (meditate or find another way to relax) You can let any career push you into an unhealthy lifestyle. Programming doesn't sentence you to an unhealthy, overweight, aching shorter life. It's all about taking care of yourself. It's good practice to maintain your code. Treat your body like source code that you have to maintain for your entire life.
  - konad 16y ago
yan 16y ago
edw519? I kid, I kid.
ErrantX 16y ago
This is not just a software/technology thing either. My uncle is in a firm of "gruff old" electricians; they have made their fortune going in towards the end of projects when they are running overdue and completing them in time (i.e. massive construction projects). But then, conversely, I know some youngsters who do similar things in other industries. So I don't think age is even a factor, some people are just finishers.
BrandonM 16y ago
I think this is where the current attitude towards programmers and how we hire them is wrong, or at least a little off-base. A lot of people here seem to look down on someone who just works his ass off and gets the job done unless that person has a web presence and a github repository. Why would a guy like this even have a blog? Why would he care about our opinions of him? The contrast is striking between the blogging, coding-a-personal-project nature of our generation of programmers and the get-things-done-efficiently-and-go-have-fun nature of an entirely different generation. Many miss that "completes entire projects by himself" and "razor-like focus" often preclude many of the activities we now expect to see in a good programmer. Many think that if a programmer is not giving something away for free -- likely something that few will use or read -- then he is just a hamster-wheel cubicle drone. Your comment reminded me that the reality of the programming world is that there are countless unsung amazing programmers who have stuck to the same platform for years, if not decades. They know their IDEs, libraries, and code bases inside and out. They get an assignment, go into crazy-productive genius-coder mode, and get a high quality product out the door. And then they go home and enjoy themselves, and none of us are the wiser. But we sure do appreciate the reliability of our cell phone networks, our vehicle computer systems, and countless other amazing pieces of software that we take for granted. Thanks for reminding us that you can be a great programmer without having a huge following, programming open source, or even working for a startup. Building something people want and getting things done are all that matters.
- corysama 16y ago
  They are one with the Tao. http://www.canonical.org/~kragen/tao-of-programming.html http://www.canonical.org/~kragen/tao-of-programming.html
- derefr 16y ago
  When a field is new, its pioneers can be identified easily: they are the ones who are making the field up as they go along. Thus, there is no need for status signaling, because the merit of each individual is very clear: the "alphas" are the Newtons and Shakespeares, having to invent entirely new notations and words just to explain the things they're working on. This is how programming was for the previous generation. When a field matures, and it becomes harder to make true advances on one's own, we lose our ability to easily evaluate objective merit--so we replace objective merit cues with subjective status cues. The "alphas" of a mature field are the ones who signal more, showing that they can afford to waste effort on useless plumage (little-used FOSS project contributions.) Of course, once we have adapted to existence in a mature field, we begin to recognize an overabundance of status cues as "trying too hard," and recognize that those who have true merit might not be bothering with status cues at all: thus is born countersignaling, of the kind these "unsung amazing pogrammers" perform.
sabat 16y ago
We believe age matters because a lot of people allow their age to matter. They let themselves go, physically and mentally, and want to slide through life. They stop growing. They stop learning. Just because some people do that doesn't mean we all do. I'm, ahem, 47 this year, and you probably wouldn't know it judging by my mental and physical vitality. I have not stopped being who I am. You don't have to, either.
- kiba 16y ago
  An old lady told me that it is not proud to label yourself a hacker. You're a criminal, etc. I don't want to be that old guy who say that a youngster' subcultural identity doesn't exists based on my preconception or so I decided.
- arethuza 16y ago
  Yup - as someone who just turned 45 I can understand that - this year I can ski better then I ever have before (and I've been skiing for nearly 35 years) and I'm having more fun with more different technologies than I've ever had before.

darwinGod 16y ago

That is a strong departure from the stereotype! I'm really interested to know more.. Does this person have a blog?What type of projects has he worked on? Would be great be if you could elaborate on what had unlearned!

BrandonM 16y ago
I would also be interested in hearing some of the lessons the grandfather poster learned, and the preconceptions he unlearned. Maybe a blog post is in order? Edit: I removed a rant that I had here which went too far off-topic.
- solutionyogi 16y ago
  I don't think darwinGod was trying to put the person down because he doesn't have a blog. He was rather interested in learning more about this person and his experiences and the lessons which jakevoytko learned from him. I think your rant is misplaced.
  - BrandonM 16y ago
    No, I don't think he was trying to put him down either, that's not why I made the comment. darwinGod's comment inspired my line of thinking, so I inappropriately replied to it. Since my comment was so off-topic, I decided to delete most of it and reply to the parent. Sorry for making your comment seem out of place.
deadmansshoes 16y ago
For a moment there I thought you were asking if Babbage had a blog...

kenjackson 16y ago

The big problem with age is focus (and price). I find myself a lot less interested in coding 18 hours a day just for kicks. It's like pizza when you're a kid. You could eat it every day for every meal. As an adult, you still like pizza, but even twice a week feels like too much. And in most regards, I think its fine. I had my day of the 90 hour work week. I'll let the new guys take their turn.

maxawaytoolong 16y ago
I actually think the problem with programming and age is that it's not very healthy. I've sat on my ass for so long I'm not convinced I will live into old age. I'm only in my mid 30s and I already have high blood pressure, a bad back, bad eyes, my brain is scrambled from too many inane emails and meetings, etc. Babbage had the advantage of being able to think on his feet and not have 1000 distractions. I know a lot of old tinkerers, including my grandfather. I don't know a lot of old office stiffs, they seem to die of heart attacks and strokes. Two of my uncles were career programmers, and they are a mess, health-wise.
- kenjackson 16y ago
  Yeah, when the walk from my desk to the candy bar vending machine started to make me perspire is when I thought I should start exercising more. Now I jog to the candy bar vending machine -- I think it's helping. :-)
- mcav 16y ago
  There's nothing inherently unhealthy about being a programmer. If you take care of yourself, you can still program a lot without adverse health effects: - Take regular breaks - Practice good ergonomics - Exercise regularly - Eat healthily - Avoid stress (meditate or find another way to relax) You can let any career push you into an unhealthy lifestyle. Programming doesn't sentence you to an unhealthy, overweight, aching shorter life. It's all about taking care of yourself. It's good practice to maintain your code. Treat your body like source code that you have to maintain for your entire life.
- konad 16y ago

yan 16y ago

edw519? I kid, I kid.

ErrantX 16y ago

This is not just a software/technology thing either. My uncle is in a firm of "gruff old" electricians; they have made their fortune going in towards the end of projects when they are running overdue and completing them in time (i.e. massive construction projects). But then, conversely, I know some youngsters who do similar things in other industries. So I don't think age is even a factor, some people are just finishers.

BrandonM 16y ago

I think this is where the current attitude towards programmers and how we hire them is wrong, or at least a little off-base. A lot of people here seem to look down on someone who just works his ass off and gets the job done unless that person has a web presence and a github repository. Why would a guy like this even have a blog? Why would he care about our opinions of him? The contrast is striking between the blogging, coding-a-personal-project nature of our generation of programmers and the get-things-done-efficiently-and-go-have-fun nature of an entirely different generation. Many miss that "completes entire projects by himself" and "razor-like focus" often preclude many of the activities we now expect to see in a good programmer. Many think that if a programmer is not giving something away for free -- likely something that few will use or read -- then he is just a hamster-wheel cubicle drone. Your comment reminded me that the reality of the programming world is that there are countless unsung amazing programmers who have stuck to the same platform for years, if not decades. They know their IDEs, libraries, and code bases inside and out. They get an assignment, go into crazy-productive genius-coder mode, and get a high quality product out the door. And then they go home and enjoy themselves, and none of us are the wiser. But we sure do appreciate the reliability of our cell phone networks, our vehicle computer systems, and countless other amazing pieces of software that we take for granted. Thanks for reminding us that you can be a great programmer without having a huge following, programming open source, or even working for a startup. Building something people want and getting things done are all that matters.

corysama 16y ago
They are one with the Tao. http://www.canonical.org/~kragen/tao-of-programming.html http://www.canonical.org/~kragen/tao-of-programming.html
derefr 16y ago
When a field is new, its pioneers can be identified easily: they are the ones who are making the field up as they go along. Thus, there is no need for status signaling, because the merit of each individual is very clear: the "alphas" are the Newtons and Shakespeares, having to invent entirely new notations and words just to explain the things they're working on. This is how programming was for the previous generation. When a field matures, and it becomes harder to make true advances on one's own, we lose our ability to easily evaluate objective merit--so we replace objective merit cues with subjective status cues. The "alphas" of a mature field are the ones who signal more, showing that they can afford to waste effort on useless plumage (little-used FOSS project contributions.) Of course, once we have adapted to existence in a mature field, we begin to recognize an overabundance of status cues as "trying too hard," and recognize that those who have true merit might not be bothering with status cues at all: thus is born countersignaling, of the kind these "unsung amazing pogrammers" perform.

sabat 16y ago

We believe age matters because a lot of people allow their age to matter. They let themselves go, physically and mentally, and want to slide through life. They stop growing. They stop learning. Just because some people do that doesn't mean we all do. I'm, ahem, 47 this year, and you probably wouldn't know it judging by my mental and physical vitality. I have not stopped being who I am. You don't have to, either.

kiba 16y ago
An old lady told me that it is not proud to label yourself a hacker. You're a criminal, etc. I don't want to be that old guy who say that a youngster' subcultural identity doesn't exists based on my preconception or so I decided.
arethuza 16y ago
Yup - as someone who just turned 45 I can understand that - this year I can ski better then I ever have before (and I've been skiing for nearly 35 years) and I'm having more fun with more different technologies than I've ever had before.