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Ask HN: Am I the longest-serving programmer – 57 years and counting?

• necovek 6y ago
  Thanks for sharing! I am exactly half your age and have been programming seriously for only for 25 years (if we consider talking over serial/COM ports at 1200 bauds or passing printer escape sequences from a DOS ncurses-like software written in BASIC serious :), and I can't imagine not programming in the future. Programming is the art of creating solutions for me, and I am sure you can relate! However, I do hope to retire early, to allow me to work down the long bucket list of ideas I have. As with anyone in programming for so long, I am sure you have a similar bucket list :) Thus, my question is: what has kept you at your jobs?
• georgegrimes 6y ago
  I only managed 40 years programming before I "got retired" by the company I worked for. I was past my full Social Security entitlement age so I could have voluntarily retired but I wasn't ready. They felt they could hire a couple of younger people for what they were paying me. That was true, but they lost a lot of experience that will cost them more dollars than their salaries!
• asouno 6y ago
  Shorewall author is about your age https://sourceforge.net/p/shorewall/mailman/message/36589783/ https://sourceforge.net/p/shorewall/mailman/message/36589783...
• jotafi 6y ago
  I am 47, I started with basic a TI99 4/A, I loved computers but I stopped at school when I was 15. At 30 I went back to evening classes and in 10 years I finished high-school and an IT degree while working full-time. I managed to get a job in Italy (I am Italian) but it was frustrating there that I emigrated to England. I have been hating my life and job since the superficiality and ignorance of people, all these horrible corporations using Java or .NET. On March I finished a contract and I cannot find another one, because of the changes in the IR35 law that the pathetic UK government made and the virus after. I was working only for the money, now everything is gone. I am 47, too coward to kill myself, too terrified to take more shit.
• scottporad 6y ago
  Congratulations! You're an inspiration! Tell us, what is the secret to your longevity?
  • genedangelo 6y ago
    I guess not smoking, no drugs and regular exercise. I really enjoy what I do - the challenge of achieving an analytical objective with limited resources has always given me great satisfaction.
    • karmakaze 6y ago
      How much exercise, and have you always been physically active? [I'm more than halfway to your experience but definitely missing this aspect.]
      • genedangelo 6y ago
        About 1 hour in the gym 4 times a week with a mixture of anaerobic and aerobic always setting goals and constraints on my heart rate (using a Polar monitor). At least that is what I was doing until about 2 years ago, when my personal life changed for a number of reasons. Now, I mainly concentrate on walking 3 or 4 miles a day.
        • karmakaze 6y ago
          Thanks, that seems like a sustainably attainable goal (and to adapt and not overdo it).
• AnimalMuppet 6y ago
  No, probably not the longest-serving, though maybe longest-serving who is on HN. Also: 74 - 57 = 17 years of age when you started as a full time programmer. How did you pull that off in 1963?
  • genedangelo 6y ago
    I actually was only 16, but turned 17 right after I started. I had finished all the math and science courses in my high school in Mississippi and I had a lot of extra time in my senior year. As a junior, I scored the highest in the U.S. on an engineering aptitude test and got a write-up in the local paper. Mitchell Engineering was trying to get into computers but didn't know how to find people who could program. When they heard about me, they approached me with the idea of becoming a programmer. At the time, I had no idea what a programmer was, but they hired me and trained me on the job.
    • gedy 6y ago
      Wonderful to hear that, and congratulations to you for that accomplishment. I worry those type of opportunities are no more, or at least much rarer.
      • quickthrower2 6y ago
        I always wonder what the next thing like programming is that isn’t mainstream yet. Maybe there is an opportunity in that. Quantum computing? But then they’d hire phds I guess.
        • jfitzsimons 6y ago
          As someone who runs a quantum computing software company, I can confirm your intuition. Almost everyone we hire to work on quantum computing directly has a PhD.
      • SonOfLilit 6y ago
        In Israel at least there are probably hundreds (out of a population of 8,000,000) of programmers working professionally below the age of 18. They don't get on-the-job training, though, it's just so easy to teach yourself at home or in high school. When I was 17 I started a program connecting high tech firms to winners of a programming competition for high schoolers that is still going, 14 years later :-) But I was far from the first to do this here.
• phillipseamore 6y ago
  I'm happy to see that you've kept up with new fields and changes in the industry. I've worked with several older programmers and they've usually been very set in their ways and shown little interest in developing new skills.
  • genedangelo 6y ago
    I know what you mean. Many of my contemporaries never got past the mainframes. I'll have to admit that it took me a little while to accept the PC to be more than any intelligent terminal. I was lucky in that I worked for Digital Equipment Corporation from 1976 to 1982 - they pioneered distributed computing.
    • rossjudson 6y ago
      And then over at Google it's mostly VIM and browsers, deploying on machines hardly anyone ever sees. I'm pretty sure they exist, but I have no hard evidence of that. The PCs really aren't much more than intelligent terminals. You were right, and you should have held your ground and been eventually correct.
    • mikewang 6y ago
      The first time I programed in mainframe, I suffered a lot. I am young. We young people at least myself is people programming from top to down, but you guys, old programmer programed from down to top. I mean from low level to high level of computer. Early days, people would have to learn hardware a lot to program. This is my impression.
• BracketMaster 6y ago
  This is pretty cool. Definitely worth documenting I think.
  • genedangelo 6y ago
    One reason I posted this is because I may attempt to gain recognition in the Guinness World Records. I know my career is longer than the person they now have listed as the "Longest career as a computer software developer" - Kaneyuki Yamaguchi in Japan
    • BracketMaster 6y ago
      Ooh - definitely should go through with that. Also, I'm doing a pilot show interviewing some Tech moguls local to Atlanta. There's a diverse group I'm interviewing from wealthy entrepreneurs to notable employees of bell labs, to people who hold an insane amount of patents. I think you could definitely fit in there somewhere.
• pkrotich 6y ago
  What’s your daily routine now and how has it evolved over the years?
  • genedangelo 6y ago
    For most of the past 25 years I have been working from home - which is a problem because you never leave your work. The main thing that has changed over recent years is that I now take a 1-hour nap around 2 or 3 PM every day, except when I have conference calls that prevent it. After the nap, I feel rejuvenated and productive. I'm sure this is partly related to old age, but I'm also dyslexic and I think my brain needs a rest from struggling with written communications.
• BracketMaster 6y ago
  Where do you work now? And also, I've heard that at Google for example, there is prejudice against older programmers? Have you experienced anything like that?
  • daly 6y ago
    Yes. The term used is "not a good cultural fit".
    • NotSammyHagar 6y ago
      google had a fair number of older programmers (like over 50) when I was there. they had a group for them, 'greygler', also gaygler (not positive of the spelling). google has a bunch of employee groups that are portmanteau's of something + google.
      • xigency 6y ago
        Phrases like that along with the policy of having new Googlers (Nooglers?) wear propeller hats really turns me off of the idea of working at Google. It sounds like joining a fraternity. Maybe a goofy one but still a frat.
        • cameronbrown 6y ago
          In my experience people who don't work there tend to focus on the "weird" stuff like it's the entire culture. It's not like you get forced to wear the hat for a week.
      • pinewurst 6y ago
        I believe that (the odious portmanteau) “greygler” is defined as being over 40.
        • NotSammyHagar 6y ago
          Oh, so I was one then. I didn't join the club :-)
• rsynnott 6y ago
  Grace Hopper apparently retired from the navy when she was _80_. And then went into consulting. So you’ve a few years to go yet.
  • genedangelo 6y ago
    I hope to make 80 - not sure my health will hold up. I did see the article on Grace Hopper on Wikipedia. She began her computing career in 1944 and she died in 1992, so that's a maximum of only 48 years. On that measure, I have her beat by 9 years already.
    • oblio 6y ago
      Be a bit more optimistic! Cent'anni!
  • JimmyAustin 6y ago
    According to Wikipedia, Grace Hopper started her computing career in 1944 when she worked on the Harvard Mark 1, which would have put her at ~38 when she began. Assuming she worked until her death, that puts her career in computing at a (incredibly impressive) 47 years.
    • rsynnott 6y ago
      She was a mathematician before that, though; probably about as close as you could get at the time :) But yeah, always vaguely thought she was younger starting.
      • kibwen 6y ago
        Younger nothing, it's wild that I never stopped to consider that there was a (recent!) period where our whole professional field had to be invented out of thin air, scooping up willing academics as it went. Considering that ENIAC (along with the Von Neumann architecture) wasn't even a thing until 1945, to begin her career in 1944 is hardly late! :) (Aside, I wonder if recruiters in 1944 were already asking for ten years of ENIAC experience?)
• karmakaze 6y ago
  It just occurred to me how interesting it will be for the new generation who start so much younger and longer life expectancy what they'll see in their long careers. Given how much has changed in your story, from Fortran to AlphaZero and GPT-2. How much will change in theirs? Will the singularity appear to be in sight? Will programmers disappear like telephone operators?
  • modwest 6y ago
    "longer life expectancy" is a very optimistic thing to say
    • eyelidlessness 6y ago
      Adjusting for surviving birth, life expectancy varies wildly in both directions (although even considering that, "longer" is definitely less of a promise now than it has been for the last several decades).
    • JoshuaDavid 6y ago
      I don't know if it's particularly optimistic - if you're (accurately) saying current life expectancy numbers don't take catastrophic risks into account, neither did calculations of life expectancy back then. Unless you think there is a higher risk of catastrophic events now than there was during the cold war.
      • fortran77 6y ago
        Life expectancy has plateaued and may be trending down in the U.S. The culprit is likely obesity. (See https://time.com/5100737/obesity-lowering-life-expectancy-united-states/ https://time.com/5100737/obesity-lowering-life-expectancy-un... )
        • modwest 6y ago
          exactamente
• daly 6y ago
  I'm at 50 years (so far).
  • djmips 6y ago
    Super!
• dpau 6y ago
  given the numerous posts about age discrimination on hn, i'm delighted to hear your story and wish you many more years of happy programming. as a whipper-snapper 40-something developer, it gives me hope and motivation.
  • ido 6y ago
    while not as old as OP, I personally know several programmers in their 50s and 60s and all said they had no problem finding work. I think if you're a top-tier developer (which OP seems to be!) age discrimination may not be as much of a factor? If you're decent but not amazing (most of us honestly) you may find it easier to find work at 35 than at 55.
    • dpau 6y ago
      you're right, not all of us can be super star devs (i certainly am not) but we can apply their techniques, mainly stay healthy and never stop learning.
    • mikekchar 6y ago
      I'm 52 and am just starting to look around. Given that I primarily want world-wide remote (I live in Japan), it may be a tad difficult. However, I had no trouble at all attracting interest in my mid 40's when I went to London for a couple of years. It took me less than a month to land a job and I had a couple of options. My biggest piece of advice to anyone who wants a long technical career is to keep learning new things. Don't rely on your day job to train you in what you need. Follow up on stuff that interests you and invest some of your "me" time on staying current in areas that interest you. I've seen a lot of people drop out of the industry because they were over specialised. I know APL experts, Cobol and DB2 experts, C++ with MFC experts, etc, etc. None of them are working as programmers any more. It's tempting to thing that Java enterprise and C# and Ruby on Rails and Python and whatever you think is the best paycheck will last forever. It won't and over time you will slowly become obsolete. A 40 something (or 50 something) with no relevant technology experience will be seen as less valuable than a 30 something because people will be imagining you are simply going through the motions. The fact that you aren't getting sucked into the new (and horrible) programming fads makes you even less attractive because the people hiring you have been pulled into those fads. So it's important to be able to speak the speak and walk the walk.
• koolba 6y ago
  Do you still type source code? How do you rate your mental agility versus your younger self?
  • genedangelo 6y ago
    So far I really haven't sensed any mental decrease, but I know there must be some. I do type some source code in Python and R, but primarily I use a rapid applications development tool that allows me to build custom machine learning algorithms and ad hoc analytics to work on big data.
    • dleslie 6y ago
      Do you consider what you do to be programming? How does it compare to, say, hand-writing C?
      • ido 6y ago
        Surely he considers it programming if he self describes as an active programmer?
        • dleslie 6y ago
          He might be doing other code work, as well. I was honestly curious how it compared. What tools and processes transfer over, that kinb of thing.
      • genedangelo 6y ago
        There is no doubt what I do is programming. It's similar in some ways to SQL, but the tool I use enables me to implement much more complexity than possible in plain SQL. It actually enables a lot of the functionality available in a procedural language like C, but within a structure built around database manipulations and joins. In this way it breaks the bounds of memory constraints and becomes a big data programming language. Admittedly, I don't have to type out individual commands, but that's a good thing. The logic is the same, but the development time is much less. It enables you to concentrate more on the algorithm design while the command syntax and other minutiae are handled in a much more efficient (and maintainable) manner.
• oh_sigh 6y ago
  Could you talk more about what you remember from your time at Mitchell Engineering Company? You worked on order processing and fulfillment...what was lacking in their process that they wanted to computerize? Was your project deemed a business success? Were you happy while you were working on it? Was it just you or a team?
  • genedangelo 6y ago
    Just briefly, then I have to hit the sack - I'm on the east coast. I developed a set of programs to allow them to map out the design of a steel building, and my programs would calculate all the pieces they need to load on the truck to build it. Mitchell was very progressive in this area - this type of computerization enabled them to have the building up in record time. A Civil Engineer worked with me and used the computer to design the main support beams. Between the two of us the entire process was automated.
• 1970-01-01 6y ago
  Serious question: How do you sit and type? What chair and what angle has worked best for your back and neck all these years?
  • genedangelo 6y ago
    I sit in an office chair (tilted back slightly) with 3 large HD monitors about 3 feet from my eyes - I have special glasses for that range. The monitors can be switched among 3 computers, and the wireless keyboard/mouse has a switch to move from one computer to another. Most importantly, I have a dog that needs walking several times a day, and that forces me to get up and walk a couple miles every day.
    • mech422 6y ago
      I have the same 3 monitor, 'computer glasses' setup... Did your optometrist give you grief about them? The first time I said I wanted a pair of single focus lenses for the computer (so I could use my whole field of view..), I got a lot of flak about "you should get bifocals". I haven't needed to drive anywhere in the last couple of years, so I basically never where my distance glasses anymore. lately though.. Seems like they're getting more used to the idea. Maybe more people doing it ?
      • rossjudson 6y ago
        I hate bifocals. Hate them. Hate hate hate. I've got the computer glasses, and then the regular ones. I swap as needed.
        • mech422 6y ago
          I've not had to try them yet. I'm not looking forward to it. Seems like it would be unnatural/tiring.
      • codingdave 6y ago
        For myself, it was my optometrist's idea. I get one "free" pair a year from my vision coverage, and when a year rolled in where my old prescription hadn't changed much, he suggested getting computer glasses instead. My only problem is forgetting to change glasses when I go out, and not really noticing til I hit a main road and wonder why the street signs are blurry.
• mech422 6y ago
  Dam - I thought my 40 years was pushing ... Thanks for the inspiration!
  • MentallyRetired 6y ago
    Right? I'm at 22 years professionally and I feel like a dinosaur out here.
    • onemoresoop 6y ago
      Same. I recently got into scheme/lisp and got a newfound inspiration. Seems like older folks were on a better path which got as time passed by more and more corrupted.
      • mech422 6y ago
        I really have to really give lisp a chance sometime. Right now, next on my language list are zig and nim. Crystal could be interesting too!
    • mech422 6y ago
      The really amazing part, is last time I looked - most software developers _leave tech_ after 10 years. This guy has managed to keep the passion over 5x that long! Hope I'll be able to say the same someday :-)
• softwaredoug 6y ago
  For me I’ve learned programming is one of the purest feelings of joy I experience. Even regardless of the language or environment. It’s so thrilling to get to take something apart and put it back together to solve a problem. I feel so lucky to have such work. Congrats. I hope I can make it to 74 writing code!
• mch82 6y ago
  Probably close. The first software program ran 21 June 1948 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stored-program_computer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stored-program_computer) and not many people who start working at 16 keep programming until 74.
  • lmm 6y ago
    Maurice Wilkes programmed from 1949 (if we're counting from when the program ran on a stored-program computer) until his death in 2010, so OP has at least 4 years to go to make the record.
• owenversteeg 6y ago
  I think you probably are, if you go by date you started working to the date you stopped! Even Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie seem to have started their first programming jobs a few years after you. Welcome to HN! I hope you stick around, it can be a great place.
• sergiotapia 6y ago
  This is quite inspiring to read. What languages do you work with these days? What do you miss about the "old way" of programming? You have such a unique perspective.
• satvikpendem 6y ago
  What do you think about all of the advances that happened in your time, especially with what machine learning is capable of these days (fully artificial human faces, for one)? Any advice (technical or life) for us younger people?
  • FillardMillmore 6y ago
    I second this request. Would love to hear any insight you have with all your life experiences in the field.
  • PopeDotNinja 6y ago
    Please don't say implementing JavaScript on punchcards.
    • lerax 6y ago
      No. Coding JS on keyboard is already bad enough.
      • pedrocx486 6y ago
        It's a bit sad that people today still "fanboy" against a lang, like a lot of people still do for PHP (which has absolutely improved from the absurdity it was). JS followed the same path, ES2016 is an absolute dream to code on. Maybe I'm biased? PHP paid my bills for a long time and currently I'm a front-end developer that works mostly with Angular (but sometimes I jump into the .NET Core backends). I love JS and TS, they evolved nicely along the years. Nothing against being a fanboy for one specific lang, but thinking "X" language is bad/joke/nightmare isn't nice and makes people that work with them look like losers, which they aren't.
        • SonOfLilit 6y ago
          PHP and Javascript both improved significantly, but both still have horrible legacy baggage that can't be rid of, namely weak typing (not dynamic, where a variable can hold any type, but weak, where "1"+2=3). For me, that makes programming in either language like running in a minefield. And still, I write Javascript daily, because myeusers don't care about weak typing :-)
• gregjor 6y ago
  Thank you for making me feel young in this crowd! Started in 1974, still at it.
• bitcoinmoney 6y ago
  Curious what is your salary? Can you share?
  • onemoresoop 6y ago
    Who cares about the money when one has an ounce of passion for it
    • ChuckNorris89 6y ago
      Because you need money to eat and pay rent and most importantly provide for your family or offspring if you have any.
      • ido 6y ago
        I can probably comfortably finance my family (2 kids, wife works part time) on half my current income, but I want to get paid as much as I can (it's not my top priority, but I certainly prefer more money than less). Stuff like the comment you answered to is how the people pulling in the actual big bucks hope to get you to work for cheap.
      • onemoresoop 6y ago
        Yeah, I didn’t mean working for free, but working on a less glamorous salary with all the other human perks is sometimes just fine, especially if one’s done raising kids and does work to fulfil the calling
  • jv22222 6y ago
    I’m genuinely curious, why you curious? :)
    • azhu 6y ago
      Because money matters. There are good arguments for financial transparency.
  • zerr 6y ago
• lijjumathew 6y ago
  Congratulations!!. What made you stick to Programming and not go the path of leadership? Are you on linkedin ?
• HaloZero 6y ago
  Congratulations! I hope it's okay this has turned into an AMA :D. Feel free to not answer! What do you think the biggest shift for day to day programming was for you in your 57 years?
• brians 6y ago
  Knuth was being paid by Burroughs to implement an Algol-58 compiler in 1960. He’s still programming, and seems to have advice for others on the subject. But I don’t expect to see him here. Congratulations on being in that company, and may it long continue.
  • owenversteeg 6y ago
    Partly cribbed from my comment downthread: I think I'd classify Knuth as the slightly different "longest working computer scientist". He's known for his quote "Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it." Or perhaps I'd classify him as the somewhat more sycophantic "longest working genius" or "longest working cool guy". Heck, Knuth was uniquely awarded a master's degree for his bachelor's because his work was considered so outstanding, he's an organist and composer, and he's hilarious. I love this quote about him: "If you had an optimization function that was in some way a combination of warmth and depth, Don would be it." A quote from him in an interview I found: "Indeed, as mentioned above, my life's work was to be a teacher."
    • weinzierl 6y ago
      That's the way he likes to paint himself. From a lecture he gave at my university I remember that he said something along the lines of, that he usually came up with the idea and others wrote the code. From the experience out of the same lecture, however, I can tell you first hand that he knows his way around code and that he can code. The lecture was indeed more of a hands on workshop with Knuth spending most of the time in Emacs coding MMIXAL assembly - pretty low level stuff actually.
      • lugged 6y ago
        Just because he can code doesn't mean he does on a daily basis for a day job, which is what this ask hn post is about no?
        • pjmorris 6y ago
• jasoneckert 6y ago
  Congrats! I love reading inspiring posts on HN! There are probably many of us who will probably follow in your footsteps. Provided that Stack Overflow continues to exist, I have no plans to ever stop programming either.
• kabdib 6y ago
  My father-in-law retired from a software engineering position at age 75. I'd be 57 years in the industry if I retired then. It seems doable; I know a couple of software types approaching or over 70 now. This would be convenient because the 32-bit signed time_t apocalypse is in early 2037. :-)
• genedangelo 6y ago
  Wow! I appreciate all the interest and feedback - quite unexpected. I'm glad I found HN. I'll try to add more responses tomorrow.
  • FillardMillmore 6y ago
    As a rather young person in the field, I'd love to hear your thoughts on any question you feel the motivation to answer. Your learned wisdom is appreciated by all of us young bucks!
  • dang 6y ago
    (I'm a moderator here. Welcome to HN!) Because you're likely to get a flood of comments and questions overnight, I've switched an alpha feature on for your account that will highlight new comments that have appeared since you last viewed the page. They'll show up with a colored bar to the left of the comment. The feature doesn't work perfectly yet, but hopefully it'll help you keep track of what's been posted since you last looked. Note that the colored bars will disappear each time you refresh the page. Good luck and thanks for a great post! (Anyone else who'd like this alpha feature turned on for their account is welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll be happy to.)
    • miki123211 6y ago
      Have you considered implementing accessibility for this feature before it goes live for all? Screen reader users cannot see colored bars, and need a different indication of the fact a comment is new. I can give suggestions if needed.
      • dang 6y ago
        Yes. If you'd be willing to email hn@ycombinator.com this would help me keep track.
    • aspenmayer 6y ago
      Is there a feature request subsite for HN? I’ve seen this implemented really well on other sites[1] in ways that don’t detract from the main site focus or functionality. [1] https://nolt.io https://nolt.io No affiliation, I just use a site which uses this to provide functionality suggestions. I don’t see why this kind of functionality can’t be bootstrapped from existing HN code.
• wwweston 6y ago
  Periodically there are questions here about dealing with burnout and learning to cope with technological change/churn. Someone who's been doing it enthusiastically for over half a century sounds like exactly the kind of person who could offer advice on that. Do you have any?
  • genedangelo 6y ago
    The one thing that comes to mind is to avoid the "hammer looking for a nail" syndrome. I see this all the time, especially in academia. Rather than worry about learning all the latest stuff, concentrate on solving the problem at hand in the simplest and most effective manner. If that requires you to learn new things, then that's a great time to expand your repertoire - working on a specific problem. Of course you have to strike a balance, but mainly concentrate on solving problems rather than being up-to-date on all the latest stuff and trying to find the proverbial nail for your new hammer.
    • shse 6y ago
      That’s one of the best software engineering advices I’ve ever heard. You should write a book. Seriously.
• droptablemain 6y ago
  OP is an OG
• pegas1 6y ago
  you beat me by 3 years
• Lyuji282 6y ago
  www
• Lyuji282 6y ago
  great news
• pushcx 6y ago
  Margaret Hamilton started her first job in 1959 and is still working: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Hamilton_(software_engineer) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Hamilton_(software_en... Depending how and whether you count academia, Donald Knuth may have a slightly longer career: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Knuth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Knuth Feels like a decent chance you're third, then. Certainly you're one of the longest-working programmers. Best of luck. :)
  • owenversteeg 6y ago
    Margaret Hamilton is an inspiration, but is she actually still working at age 83? I can't find anything that would indicate she is. For something like the "longest-working programmer" I'd expect them to have been actually "work"-working during that time. And I think I'd classify Knuth as the slightly different "longest working computer scientist". He's known for his quote "Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it." Or perhaps I'd classify him as the somewhat more sycophantic "longest working genius" or "longest working cool guy". Heck, Knuth was uniquely awarded a master's degree for his bachelor's because his work was considered so outstanding, he's an organist and composer, and he's hilarious. I love this quote about him: "If you had an optimization function that was in some way a combination of warmth and depth, Don would be it."
    • mbrock 6y ago
      She's the CEO of Hamilton Technologies: http://www.htius.com/ http://www.htius.com/
      • radres 6y ago
        OP asked longest-serving programmer. That doesn't involve people who switched to management or some other position like CEO.
        • agumonkey 6y ago
          It would be fun to have her coming to tell if she's still brainstorming or coding.
• bg24 6y ago
  Respect for how you achieved continuous learning along the way 1/ Did you ever feel isolated in a group because of age? 2/ How did you manage to stay focused when your colleagues may just be growing up the ladder?
• mraza007 6y ago
  That’s very nice to hear My question is how do you keep your technical knowledge upto date
• WrtCdEvrydy 6y ago
  I'm 28 and I wanna be like you. You don't know how inspiring you are, buddy :)
• exclusiv 6y ago
  > I am now a data scientist developing cloud-based big data fraud detection algorithms using machine learning and other advanced analytical technologies. Put that in a pitch deck and raise whatever you want! J/K! Congratulations on the career, success and evolution!
• vincentlee 6y ago
  !!please get in to anti-cheat engineering for multi-player networked games. the battle between game developers and funded cheat orgs is cold war-esque
  • saagarjha 6y ago
    Why that field in particular?
  • sparkie 6y ago
    I used to be on the side of cheaters, but mostly for fun. Was never funded but could have made profit from it. I know several people who went in that direction and made good money. As teenagers with no qualifications, getting a blue collar job wasn't really an option. Attempts at protecting a game client from reverse engineering are mostly a waste of time. These protections can be beaten faster than they can be developed. Once a hacker has reverse engineered your wire protocol and cryptography your game client is just one of potentially several. Has probably changed a lot over the past decade or so, but the developers at the time were wasting their efforts on tightening their software clients rather than using AI, honeypots and other techniques on the server to detect and ban bots. I recall offering to work for a couple of the companies whose games I had developed cheats for, but they rejected me right away without even an interview. One of the issues is: MMOs are often very repetitive. The actions of your real users are somwhat bot-like to begin with. This means bot developing isn't that difficult. Adding randomness to the behaviour of the bot can make it look like a regular player. I suspect there are some differences which some well trained neural networks might be able to classify, but you need to be really careful of false positives because anything which gets in the way of regular players enjoying the game will lose you customers.
    • jv22222 6y ago
      Interesting. For the cheaters, how does the business side of it work?
      • sparkie 6y ago
        The revenue is mostly from selling in-game money and rare items which are farmed by bots. There are many trading websites you can use, just search "buy WoW gold" for instance. (I just looked and this market looks incredibly saturated compared 15 years ago). Selling the bots themselves was an option, but people can just reverse engineer your bot and redistribute it. The bot typically ends up posted on some public forum and becomes a target for the developers to patch against. Also, the more people who are running the bots in game, the less profit you are going to have from selling your items because they're more abundant, so it is better to keep it confidential and just have many accounts farming. Before the bots were commonplace, there were Chinese "sweatshops" where people were paid scraps to play the games for 20+ hours a day in horrific working conditions. Would hear stories like "man dies from playing MMORPG for 36 hours straight".
• beamatronic 6y ago
  I think it's awesome that you have had a long career and still going. I know of one gentleman in a similar situation. I think he may be in his late 70's or even early 80's. He's currently working on porting some Fortran or Cobol code he wrote in his 20's from his first job ever!
• fortran77 6y ago
  I thought I was an old timer, with my Fortran 77 experience. But Fortran II! If it followed the naming convention, that was from 1902, right? Welcome to Hacker News. They don't always treat us graybeards well so you'll need to be tough.
• flashgordon 6y ago
  Mate first of all my huge huge respect to you for keeping at it. This is true passion and I really really wish that see more of it. I hope you are doing what you enjoy for another 50 years at least!!!
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• NiceWayToDoIT 6y ago
  @genedangelo As a programmer, do you feel pressure with time passage? Have you felt any problem with memory or speed of thinking, have you ever thought about how it was in certain stages of your life from the perspective of abilities to do things? No disrespect, after only 20 years (third of your time) sometimes I feel that it was much easier to solve things in the beginning, so sometimes I am kind of worried what will happen if I ever live to that age. Generally I am interested how does cognitive ability changes with age.
• giancarlostoro 6y ago
  That is wonderful! Hey I'm from Florida too! (I assume you've at least been there since you mentioned FAU) :) You are doing what I hope to: code even if I 'retire' I intend to code till the day I can't anymore. Welcome to HN! It's a great place, has a few things I don't like here or there, but overall a great place to learn all sorts of things and learn about all sorts of people from varying backgrounds.
• mikadel 6y ago
  In my company, we can get "Senior Developer" title after 3 to 4 year experience. What your current title?
  • onemoresoop 6y ago
    Real senior developers with lots of experience are usually shown the finger in our industry. There’s no such title to reflect 57 years of experience; i’ve heard it unofficially refered as baggage
    • Aeolun 6y ago
      Yeah, your titles become more amazing until around 40 years of age, then they start degrading again. Of course, if you stay where you are your salary doesn’t, so :/
    • CyberFonic 6y ago
      Sadly that is a very common situation. Thus even more fitting to celebrate those who are still working, learning and enjoying their programming careers.
  • uzantonomon 6y ago
    Jurassic Developer (with all the respect).
  • wy35 6y ago
    Senior Citizen Developer
    • ridiculous_fish 6y ago
      boo
  • em-bee 6y ago
    methusalem, god of code :-)
    • 6y ago
• baggy_trough 6y ago
  My mother is still coding Fortran at 76. I think she may have started a couple of years after you though. Fortran forever!
• msoad 6y ago
  In an interview Bill Gates said he likes TypeScript. It was about a year ago. Sure he’s not a full time programmer but something tells me the itch will always be there for us the curious! :)
  • folkhack 6y ago
    I am so reluctant to accept Microsoft in ECMA, and I have no idea why but I'm even more reluctant to after hearing this. I mean - sure. I love Gates and all. But things like the Win32 API make me so weary to ever trust his opinion as a SWE. His technical "blessing" on anything doesn't mean much IMO.
• onemoresoop 6y ago
  Congrats, you made it top 1 on HN! When we live in a world where experience is treated as baggage it is remarkable to find people in places like here to still appreciate it. I hope you will be able to enjoy your career until you decide yourself to retire! I think a lot of younger folks here, who are old by modern standards - I just turned 40 this year - are thirsty for some wisdom and lots of questions will be asked. And please don’t be offended if someone attacks you for some oppinion, this is the world we live in nowadays, someone’d find a fault in almost anything or anyone.
• yuppiepuppie 6y ago
  Congrats! Just curious, as someone with so much experience, do you still have to do coding challenges when interviewing for positions?
  • daly 6y ago
    Yes. Read up on data structures and their big-O costs. Most of the "interviews" are conducted by very-recent college graduates who know the algorithms and their big-O. The fact that I taught Data Structures didn't seem to matter as none of them actually read my resume (despite having a copy they brought with them). It is more of a "hazing ritual" than a job interview.
• ChaitanyaSai 6y ago
  Someone should get this gentleman on a podcast
• didip 6y ago
  How many programming languages and frameworks have you learned in total?
• millstone 6y ago
  Thank you, this is a wonderful post! Please share more of your story. (Write a book, please). I would love to hear answers to the following: 1. What ideas proved useful throughout your career, and what ideas did you change your mind about? 2. What are your hobbies? Do you still program in your spare time - if so, what? Or do you find other outlets? 3. What went into the decision to go back to school? Did you get the PhD? If not, did you get burned out, or what lured you away? 4. What were the Big Ideas in software over your career that didn't work out? Any that were better than expected? 5. General successes/regrets/advice for these readers!
  • lisper 6y ago
    Not the OP but I got my first programming job as a junior in high school in 1980 so I've been at it for 40 years. If that's good enough, here are my answers: > What ideas proved useful throughout your career Learning Lisp. I got an enormous amount of leverage out of that, and still do (I'm more or less retired, but I have a nice little Lisp consulting gig at the moment). > what ideas did you change your mind about? Before Lisp I thought BASIC was pretty cool (old-school BASIC, with line numbers). I was pretty down on Python when I first encountered it but now I'm a fan. > What are your hobbies? I like to hike, bike, ski, travel, fly airplanes, free dive and ride flowriders. I also write a blog. > Do you still program in your spare time - if so, what? Yes, but not very much. The last big project I did was writing the firmware for this product: https://sc4.us/hsm https://sc4.us/hsm and the e-commerce system I use to sell it. That was quite a while ago. > Did you get the PhD? Yes, because I thought I wanted to be a college professor. Turns out that's not what I wanted, but I'm still glad I did it. But it's not for everyone. It really depends on what you want out of life. Do it because you love research. Don't do it as a means to some other end. It takes way too many of the best years of your life to do it for anything other than its own sake. > What were the Big Ideas in software over your career that didn't work out? Any that were better than expected? I've seen a zillion software fads come and go. UML. XML. ISO whatever the fuck it was back in 2000 or so. The vast majority of popular things in the software world are bullshit. The world keeps re-inventing s-expressions with different syntax. Very little has turned out better than expected, though Rust and webassembly look pretty cool. If I were going to do another deep dive into something today it would probably be one of those two things. > General successes/regrets/advice for these readers! The world today is awash with computational wealth beyond the wildest dreams of my youth. Take advantage of it. Get a Raspberry pi and noodle around with it. Bring up a web server, an email server, a DNS server. If you're really feeling ambitious, write your own, or write a game. Build a Linux kernel from source. Design your own programming language and write a compiler for it, even if it's just a minor riff on something that already exists. None of these things are particularly hard [1], and the things you will learn and the empowerment you will feel by doing them are priceless. [1] The hard part of programming is not getting things to work, the hard part is getting things to work well enough for someone else to want to use use.
• astatine 6y ago
  Respect! That's truly inspirational. At barely half the experience with 30 years I keep wondering about what next. I still do plenty of programming in C (which, along with Z80 and 8086 assembly, is what I started with), Python and JS with some dabbling in Go. I find the problem solving part as invigorating and exhilarating as ever. What I do struggle with is the 100x additional lines of code which will be needed to make that initial code usable by others. That is needed and all that, but is stuff I would have done dozens of times in the past in different contexts and sometimes approaches drudgery. I wonder if you have any advice on how to keep the interest from flagging in a project past that initial days/weeks of deep absorption. Thanks again for sharing this.
  • visarga 6y ago
    > I wonder if you have any advice on how to keep the interest from flagging in a project past that initial days/weeks of deep absorption. I, too, have been programming for 32 years. I have thought about your question many times. My current solution is to 'play more'. Allow yourself to play, even when you are in the 100x additional part. Playing makes your passion flare up again. By play I mean to start interesting side projects, ideas, try something new.
  • elbear 6y ago
    Maybe aim to see things in a different perspective. You making that code usable by others means others will benefit from your work. So 1) you benefit from the work by having fun 2) others benefit from your work by using it to solve their problems or building things they find fun Usability is also a problem worth solving. It's just a different problem.
• mark_l_watson 6y ago
  I think you may be. I got to try programming a Basic timesharing system in 1963 when I was a kid, in 1972 I had a summer job doing FORTRAN, and then started a full time programming job after getting a BS in Physics from UCSB in 1973. So you have ten more years working than I do.
• shafner99 6y ago
  Beautiful
• pelasaco 6y ago
  you remember my Father. Worked for IBM in the end of 60s, worked as COBOL developer, then went the whole process until become Territory manager from IBM and after retirement, got a second master in Quality assurance testing, and now in the age of 75 got, this week, his Scrum master certification and spend his day busy with python :)
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• ransom1538 6y ago
  Fist bump. Congrats on an awesome career. You are an inspiration. Slice up fulfillment data in Fortran II before rules and drama -- legit. What are the younger programmers doing wrong? (I don't think we are much quicker - at anything). Also #1 on hacker news.
• aliakhtar 6y ago
  That's a lot of typing, over 57 years. How did you avoid RSI, carpal tunnel, and other injuries / health problems related to programming for this long?
• flobosg 6y ago
  Even if not the longest-serving, you're definitely quite high on the list. Thanks for sharing your story!
• idolaspecus 6y ago
  My grandpa is ~75, started programming professionally in his early 20s, and currently works as an engineer for the University of Utah, so my hunch is that there’s more people with 50+ years of software engineering experience than you might at first suspect. Either that or I just doxxed myself ;)
  • rantwasp 6y ago
    details. what technologies is your grandpa using? what's his opinion on javascript? any epic kids these days stories?
    • idolaspecus 6y ago
      I don’t know many details, but he’s been using Java for 10 years or so, and he’s not particularly interested in the new hotness. 10ish years ago I asked him how to learn to code and I know he in turn asked his brother, who’s a tad younger and I think is a CS professor somewhere in the Midwest. He ended up giving me Learn to Program Ruby by Chris Pine. Edit: One more thing is that he’s the most intellectually well-rounded person I’ve ever met, a characteristic which I wouldn’t be surprised if it was common in programmers with more than a couple dozen years of experience.
  • Taniwha 6y ago
    Oh yeah, I started at 12, now I'm 62, still working happily, I think the trick is to reinvent yourself every decade or so, find something completely different to do, it's a big field
    • coldcode 6y ago
      I too am 62 and have been a working programmer for almost 39 years. I did run two small startups early in my career, but was always a full time programmer alongside the others. Today I am a lead iOS programmer working with a team of 4 (until recently 7) team members, I still write code everyday and my team has a great rep for doing things faster than anyone expects, and still with the highest quality results. I've switched gears a lot over my career, from Fortran to Assembly to Pascal to C to C++ to Objective-C to Java back to C/C++ back to Objective-C and now the latest Swift. Done almost every kind of programming including embedded systems, desktop apps, web apps, mobile apps, dev tools and even worked at Apple helping other programmers back in the sad days. Funny how things I learned early on still guide me today, even though the tech has changed radically so many times.
• mrich 6y ago
  Thanks for posting, it's good to see long-time developers that did not move to management :) How many jobs have you held, and what was your criteria when switching jobs (apart from any possible family reasons)? Looking back, is there any favorite technology of yours (language, concept, anything) Do you feel the industry is buzzword-driven to a significant extent? (e.g. things get rebranded, reinvented, reimplemented on latest tech instead of fixing and improving existing things, business value does not get better but software often gets more resource-hungry)
• neilwilson 6y ago
  At 38 years and a graduate of the ZX81 school of programming I am but a mere whippersnapper. But I look forward to the day when I have accumulated sufficient experience to truly understand Lisp. May the code by with you. Always.
  • FearNotDaniel 6y ago
    For a moment there I thought you meant you were 38 years old, meaning you would have been tapping on that membrane keyboard in your nappies :-) But yeah, happy days. My school had a couple of ZX81s and an Apple ][ which got me started until the BBC Micro came out and we got a ZX Spectrum at home.
• ghotli 6y ago
  Thanks for posting. Just laying the feels wide open here. It's an inspiration to know you're still at it and I sure hope to be at it too. Lots of worthwhile problems to still solve.
• asplake 6y ago
  Kinda related: I’m a second generation programmer and my son a third
• creed98 6y ago
  Just to lyk, those fraud detection systems don't work so get back to work
• naedish 6y ago
  I'm not sure if he is still programming now (he was a few years ago at least) but Jeff Whittle started programming in 1962 on a Ferranti Sirius[0]. He was awarded an AO (Order of Australia) for his services to the Mining Industry a few years ago due to his mining optimisation software. [0]https://whittleconsulting.com.au/livebook/downloads/3.5-Story.pdf https://whittleconsulting.com.au/livebook/downloads/3.5-Stor...
• master_yoda_1 6y ago
  respect
• georgespencer 6y ago
  I was thrilled to see Walter Bright (@WalterBright) on here a few days ago! I don't think he's been working for 57 years but he certainly has a few stories to tell. 57 years is an amazing innings in such a relentless field - congratulations, and long may you continue.
  • MauranKilom 6y ago
    I've seen him quite active, providing his thoughts on e.g. language designs and relating them to his choices for D.
• coder4life 6y ago
  You've given this 51 year old coder (31 years in the coding seat) new hope! I did 21 years of those in start-ups, so it's been kind of harrowing. Hoping this year to go full time remote. Started with RPG-III/System38s, now doing nodeJS/nextJS/react. Adapt or die :)
• vishnugupta 6y ago
  Thank you for this. As a 40yo with 15 years into this profession, I have been having recurring feeling like “being at the crossroads”. This is exactly what I needed to get inspired. Respect.
• rronalddas 6y ago
  Can you do a reddit AMA?? I think many people would be interested
• a4wtaw4tawtawt 6y ago
  damn bitch, u old as shit
• fancythat 6y ago
  Inventor of Forth, Chuck Moore still codes. He is 81. He funded his last startup at tender age of 70 (Green Arrays).
• asimjalis 6y ago
  What kind of programming do you do these days?
• Aeolun 6y ago
  It’s interesting you can be a little bit more than twice my age, but have 6 times as much professional experience.
• jacquesm 6y ago
  hello dear Gene, Wow, I wasn't even born in 1963 (1965 issue here), and I really got into programming around 15 or so, so 40 years and counting on this end. Super impressive that you still enjoy coding and do not plan to retire. These days I only code for myself, I've stopped doing commercial work but will occasionally help out in places where my particular combination of talents is useful. I also don't plan on giving it up at all but you never know what the future will bring and I'm very sure that my mental faculties are not at the same level where they were 20 years ago, nor do I get as fired up about a cool algorithm as I did back then. Being born around that time and seeing all this development has been a ride that I would not trade for anything else except for - retrospectively - a career in music (which still is my first love) or - corny, but timely - being an astronaut. But not to fly circles around the earth. So all things considered I feel both lucky and privileged and I wonder if those are things that you share or would care to talk about. best regards & a very warm welcome to HN.
  • mianos 6y ago
    I am a little older and maybe a little more than 40 years experience. I still love it and program at home and work. I still get excited about new stuff or learning a new platform (I am setting up Hashicorp Vault at the moment, awesomely interesting). My first love was electronics, which I still do at home, so maybe my experience is a little different. The last few years I have been learning abstract algebra and some nuclear physics. At this stage I can't imagine ever stopping.
• infradig 6y ago
  Started in 1978. No longer program professionally (much) but still do it for fun.
• Tepix 6y ago
  I have a question, did your wage stop going up at some point?
• bazza451 6y ago
  This made my day, absolutely wonderful achievement! Especially the area that you’re now in...it’s really not an easy task to retrain yourself for ML. I’m 12 years in professionally and still loving every second of it! Currently been slugging out Leetcode problems all hours of the day to try and get myself to an org with a proper engineering track. So maybe further down the line I still might be able to solve computer problems (in some way or form) during my day. I really hope to someday to be able to come onto HN and do the same thing as you :)
  • mindentropy 6y ago
    Funny. I too with 14 years also with a lot of love for programming want to have a career like him. Like you I too am leetcoding so that I can get into a proper engineering company where I will not be discriminated based on age. Hope we both will do the same as what the OP did.
    • bazza451 6y ago
      Best of luck to you when you do the interviews! Everything just takes time and practice :)
• moritzmoritz21 6y ago
  That sounds so great! You were working in an area where computers had black-green terminals, you saw when people were afraid what will happen if the date changes to 2000 :scream:, you saw the Sony Ericsson handy area, smartphones, tables, wearables and now ML! Exciting man and I want to be able to write here in ~40 years. Congrats to all what you have achieved! :clap:
• njacobs5074 6y ago
  Whether you are or not, I congratulate you on your achievement. And the fact that you’re posting it on HN definitely counts for extra! Well done!
• hermitcrab 6y ago
  I started programming as a child in around 1979 and have been programming professionally since 1987. So you have me beat by quite a margin. Congratulations! I can't imagine stopping programming as long as I am still capable of doing it.
• stephen82 6y ago
  Can we have a blog with your programming / life adventures? Also, it would be wise to name it "genedangelo in byteland" haha! ^_^
• inscartwheelies 6y ago
  Keep it up! "Retirement" is a fancy way of saying "a slow decline by idleness." I believe it's often work that keeps us from falling apart.
• KineticLensman 6y ago
  Respect! I've only been programming since approx 1979. I still remember the first time that I saw internet technology used in 1982 - transferring a file from the US to the Uni of Leeds in the UK. I also have no plans to stop although I have retired from full-time employment. Now just a hobbyist, who programs every few days, at my own pace and on my own projects. Here's my own thought. My last place of work did a lot of research into teaching and simulation tech, and was heavily pushing AR / VR solutions from a disruptor perspective. Some of the theoreticians were heavily into their generation X/Y/Z perspectives and made a lot the advantages that young people would have as 'digital natives'. As someone who'd been using computers since before they were born, I was quietly amused as being characterised as someone who couldn't properly understand tech because I didn't program until I was age 17/18. It could be argued that many modern digital natives are really the locked-in inhabitants of digital cities and walled gardens. I now characterise myself as a sort of 'digital settler' who in retrospect could be viewed as a pioneer on the digital frontier (although this is not how I perceived it in the early 80s when I was learning Pascal and then C on DEC, Amdhal and Vaxen). I think my message for people who want to stay involved with the tech is to decouple their enjoyment of it from their career aspirations. Of course, YMMV!
  • barnabee 6y ago
    > It could be argued that many modern digital natives are really the locked-in inhabitants of digital cities and walled gardens. So true. I am lucky that almost all my programming is for personal enjoyment/growth and have gotten a huge amount of pleasure from breaking out of the infinity of abstractions that make up modern operating systems and getting into electronics and microcontrollers (which can now be purchased for pennies). There’s something great about truly understanding a system (also true about larger scale and even non technical systems, but I have particularly felt the change you describe from pioneer/settler to controller citizens on modern computers).
  • imhoguy 6y ago
    > I think my message for people who want to stay involved with the tech is to decouple their enjoyment of it from their career aspirations. Thank you for your words! I hope to retire soon from headless chicken corporate job and to bring back a joy of programming art.
• jodrellblank 6y ago
  Bob Smith who codes the NARS2000 APL interpreter was programming from at least 1969: http://www.nars2000.org http://www.nars2000.org http://www.sudleyplace.com/APL/projects.html http://www.sudleyplace.com/APL/projects.html
• lowwave 6y ago
  That is great to see someone who has being doing this for so long. True respect for someone like this instead of someone who is just jumping the band wagon because tv show like Mr. Robot, the React FB, side effect.
• mindentropy 6y ago
  This is really great! Keep doing what you are doing, Sir. I once had the pleasure of interviewing a German consultant who was into Android programming and he was like 48 or 50 years old. The interview was like listening to stories of his programming days with various hardware(Commodore etc) and it was fascinating that too with his precise German English accent.
• clewis2606 6y ago
  Awesome! I have no plans to retire. I turn 50 in a few weeks and just returned back to the technology field after leaving it for 14 years. Eventually I plan on getting another masters or a PhD in data science, statistics or some other computer science field. If I could I'd buy you a cup of coffee and pick your brain. If you went to FAU then we are relatively close.
• johndavid9991 6y ago
  Respect! I plan to do the same when I get old. You are an inspiration Sir.
• artsyca 6y ago
  Sir, when you were first starting out what was the standard dress for coders and how have you seen it evolve over the years?
  • artsyca 6y ago
    Was it anything like the NASA engineers putting men into space as we see them now? Proper shirts and neckties?
  • genedangelo 6y ago
    When I started out, business casual was the norm, just as it is today. A big difference was that many of us had "pocket protectors" where we carried our pens, pencils and slide rule. You may have seen those in some movies as a distinguishing feature for nerds.
• perlpimp 6y ago
  ho, man I feel real lonely not finding any people who are like to screw around and code for pleasure. so many smart polished developers that would do something else if enviroment was different, but kills my heart. I would love to code forever, but I am not as tenacious as those are superprofessional I rather would like to enjoy and freeride the waves of code, And I find conversing within community dispiriting. Am I alone?
• john4532452 6y ago
  Phew. I am about 30 and i fear age discrimination. Love to hear more of these stories.
• aws_ls 6y ago
  Welcome to HN and for making this place more magical by your presence. Have seen other very senior programmers here over the years. Paul Lutus comes to mind now[1]. One question: Do you go through a mid life crisis in programming in your 40s/50s? My story (just felt like sharing): I am in my 40s and have been programming for 30 years (I first wrote in Fortran in my Engineering College, 1st semester). Later professionally coded in C++ for around 10 years (and still keep coming back to it, as needed). Java for 10 years. Golang for 7 years. And Python for last 2-3 years. And there were other languages like Visual basic (late 90s). A lot of Unix shell scripting. I still think, I am at my best. But do have occasional self doubts. The main difference from younger days, which is perceptible to me, is the need for eye glasses, and needing slightly bigger fonts on occasions (HN is perfect that way). I teach/guide my elder son, in programming, who just turned 20, and doing well as a programmer - did half of K&R C chapters and decent in algorithmic programming. Spent few months at Codeforces website and reached specialist level (Next level is Expert, which is generally considered respectable by any standard). And he also likely lurks on HN. :) So now, when I see your message, it only makes me happy, that HN has likely at least 3 generation of programmers if not more. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=lutusp https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=lutusp Edit: typo
  • rbanffy 6y ago
    > Paul Lutus comes to mind now I used GraFORTH and TransFORTH so much... I'm in my 50's now, started my career during college, writing educational software for Apple II clones (not in FORTH, sadly). Now mostly Python, since the early 2000's, with little bits of other languages here and there. I find HN delightful for the diversity we see here.
  • joelbluminator 6y ago
    Just keep up the good work, glasses or no glasses
  • jv22222 6y ago
    @aws_ls I wanted to surface this answer to a question about burnout answered by genedangelo. I is on page 2 here but I think it is relevant to what you are asking. > genedangelo 1 day ago > The one thing that comes to mind is to avoid the "hammer looking for a nail" syndrome. I see this all the time, especially in academia. Rather than worry about learning all the latest stuff, concentrate on solving the problem at hand in the simplest and most effective manner. If that requires you to learn new things, then that's a great time to expand your repertoire - working on a specific problem. Of course you have to strike a balance, but mainly concentrate on solving problems rather than being up-to-date on all the latest stuff and trying to find the proverbial nail for your new hammer. Additionally, I am in a coder in my 50s and I have to say I am not going through any kind of mid life crisis in programming! Like genedangelo, I just focus on problems that need to get solved and I really don't care how I solved it as long as I use a great tool that is meant for that job. Super happy to learn a new tech if it makes sense for the problem. There was a phase a few years ago where folks were using node.js to build all kinds of websites, including content heavy text based sites that would be better served as static html or dynmaic Ruby, PHP etc. I think that's the classic mistake of a hammer looking for a nail and I can imagine it was really unsatisfying to build those kinds of sites with that kind of tech and might even contribute to burnout (just speculating).
• RajuVarghese 6y ago
  Hats off to you, genedangelo! I retired last year after about 40 years of work but I am still programming. I think that we as programmers are lucky to be in a profession where our personal interest and professional work can coincide. More importantly, we can carry our interest well into retired life. This is a golden age for people like us: we can buy microcontrollers for peanuts or we could have a supercomputer-like cluster in the cloud (for a brief period) for a reasonable amount of money. And anything in between.
• wowxp 6y ago
  I wonder if you got any health issues related to your profession? What do you do to keep yourself in shape physically and mentally? Congratulations on your success.
• teddyh 6y ago
  Every single person who calls you “inspirational” or “impressive” is actually revealing their own age prejudice. A programmer still programming while growing old is not something to marvel at, it is the normal state of things. Please do not allow people to put you on a pedestal; this would only strengthen the age prejudice present in the industry. Note: You deserve considerable respect and deference for the experience and skill you have no doubt acquired over the years. Also, since there are so few people like you who started programming in those years, you are an unusual and notable person. But don’t let anyone insinuate that it would have been normal for you to have stopped programming by now. It is not.
  • artsyca 6y ago
    The current crop of coders is not going to age well
    • JauntyHatAngle 6y ago
      Why?
      • artsyca 6y ago
        Ethics are completely dead JauntyHatAngle and the atmosphere is no longer one of irreverent fun and learning but chilling effects, groupthink and rudderless management I could write a whole paragraph about it but 57 years ago this was viewed as a new frontier whereas now it's literally a war zone
    • metaralf 6y ago
      I fear this, too. Too many of the new brains are helpless without frameworks.
  • alexpetralia 6y ago
    This comment is emblematic of the confusing times we are in. You cannot say anything - even "congratulations" - without stepping on someone's toes. Every assumption undoubtedly reveals some sort of partiality, privilege and discrimination. There are so many assumptions from which we must extricate ourselves that we are effectively prohibited from saying anything.
• themistokl1k 6y ago
  RESPEK
• pxsant 6y ago
  I am 80 years old and still working full time in IT. Although I evolved from pure programming to project management and business analysis the past few years. Originally started out working at Cape Canaveral as a radar and telemetry engineer and moved into programming after I left there. Whenever I interview, I completely ignore the age issue. If the interviewer is to dumb to recognize the value of my knowledge and experience, that is on them. Finally completed my PhD in Computer science when I was in my 60's.
  • gorn 6y ago
    I just found this thread and it's so great. You are an inspiration dear sir/madam. Do you still exercise?
  • harisund 6y ago
    I am sorry, but you are not a programmer anymore. You are a project manager or a business analyst. The reason you are able to completely ignore the age issue is because there's no ageism in hiring business analysts and project managers. The ageism is visible in hiring programmers, which most certainly you are not. You might "dabble" in code outside of work in your own spare time, but that doesn't make you a professional programmer, which is what this thread is about
    • shlant 6y ago
      "I am sorry, but you are not a programmer anymore" Your gatekeeping is not welcome here. This isn't a competition. "The reason you are able to completely ignore the age issue is because there's no ageism in hiring business analysts and project managers. The ageism is visible in hiring programmers, which most certainly you are not." and your unfounded conclusions aren't welcome either.
      • adontz 6y ago
        I am just 37 but find myself much more comfortable in management than writing code, compared to 27yo myself. I can't understand why you shame someone for pointing at true facts.
• somedev9 6y ago
  What a great post. It’s inspiring to know it’s possible to stay in this industry so long. Having read many stories of programmers having to retire early or switch into management or different careers, it’s wonderful to hear from someone who has kept going. Have you had any physical health challenges along the way such as RSI/arthritis? Im asking because I’m only in my mid 30s and already having difficulty with arthritis in my fingers.
• AlleyTrotter 6y ago
  43 years here
• roborobert 6y ago
  My grandmother started working on adding machines at IBM right after college in 1939. She retired in the 1980s programming in Cobol for Nielsen Media Research. Her daughter, my mother, was also a programmer and married another. My father is still programming at 74, though I think he was 73 at his last paying job (doing audio classification with RNNs). All of their tenures are a few years shy of yours, but in aggregate it's competitive. TL;DR everyone ancestor of mine born since 1916 has been a computer programmer.
• chrisweekly 6y ago
  First, thank you for sharing and welcome to HN! :) Second, I want to take a moment to commemorate and celebrate my father, who enrolled at MIT in 1967, graduated w a Master's in CSEE, spent 25 years working at GenRad and continued working as a software engineer (at MathWorks) until the week before he passed away in early 2018. So he was a programmer for over 50 years. While I'm unlikely to reach that milestone (having started "late", a couple years after graduating college in 1996), my younger brother wrote his first program at age 5 and is still at it today (36 years and counting). No particular point to make here, just reflecting on our chosen field and feeling very, very fortunate to be part of this community. Be well! :)
• JoeAltmaier 6y ago
  Very impressive and significant! My experience began on the Altair 8800 as a kid in my brothers' bedroom. Continued on personal computers to the present day. So maybe the longest (possible) PC experience, but I'm sure it's shared by many.
• ChrisMarshallNY 6y ago
  You have my respect sir (I assume, but women have been a significant force in programming since the days of Yore). I have been writing software since 1983, and Apple software since 1986. I started as an EE (actually, technician, but became an EE in '84). I was a manager for a large part of my career, which relegated my programming to open-source projects (one of which has become a rather significant force, in its own right). I also worked for a Japanese corporation for almost 27 years. The Japanese have a sort of "reverse-ageism" in their culture. Older folks are often treated with a great deal of respect, and their judgment is considered valuable. Many promotions have age (must be "at least"...) as a factor. There's lots of issues with Japanese business culture, but it was the environment where I learned a lot of my cultural cues. So, it has been rather...interesting to encounter the current...um...level of respect...for experienced engineers in today's American tech industry. TBH, it was shocking. I knew that it was a factor, but I had no idea that it was so prevalent. I was absolutely gobsmacked. When I first encountered it, I just wanted to throw in the towel and run, but I don't work that way. Instead, I doubled-down, and it has been quite gratifying. I guess old dudes can code, after all... Again, you have my respect. This guy is inspiring: https://www.businessinsider.sg/oldest-nobel-prize-winner-arthur-ashkin-optical-tweezers-levitation-2019-1 https://www.businessinsider.sg/oldest-nobel-prize-winner-art...
• binodkalathil 6y ago
  I have been a coder for 9+ years now but im seeing variations in my X-Rays of my neck due to long hours of sitting, i guess. Do you face any such health issues related to the profession? Or do you do/practice anything that can avoid such health conditions related to the profession?
• noefingway 6y ago
  Keep at it! I'm 68, started programming when I was 17 on a PDP-8 with Dartmouth Basic, paper tape and a teletype. Moved on from there to mainframes, minis, workstations. Still working and learning.
• danso 6y ago
  Thanks for sharing! > Since then, all my jobs for the past 57 years have involved computer programming As others have pointed out, there are definitely older, working programmers like Margaret Hamilton [0], but who may not have programming as the main part of their job. Would you say programming is the main part of your day as a data scientist (I have no idea, as I've thought DS could encompass a variety of non-programming work)? A common question that comes up with mid-career programmers is whether they should take the jump into management – how have you dealt with that crossroads throughout your career? [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23367138 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23367138
• lmilcin 6y ago
  Would be interesting to hear some of the stories.
• charlescearl 6y ago
  Just a note that Georgia Tech http://www.gradadmiss.gatech.edu/62-or-older http://www.gradadmiss.gatech.edu/62-or-older allows those over 62 to take graduate and undergraduate classes tuition free.
  • randcraw 6y ago
    This applies only if you reside in Georgia.
• intpete 6y ago
  Not looking to compete for the crown, but I have been involved with software development on and off since 1970. I started college in 1969, and really loved my liberal arts and social science courses, but began having panic attacks in class (I found out many years later that I was bipolar). My hail Mary move was switching majors to 'Business Data Processing'. My thought being that programming would give me a salable skill the quickest. We were doing JCL and COBOL programming on the school mainframe using punch cards. The panic attacks continued, and I dropped out of school in 1971. In 1975, I enlisted in the US Air Force, and spent six years working in Signal Intelligence. I have been part of the defense contractor corps (aka Beltway Bandits) since 1981, and doing database development/admin continuously from 1988 to this day. I'm 69 now.
  • marstall 6y ago
    Thanks for sharing ... how did you manage the panic attacks in the end?
    • intpete 6y ago
      Thanks for asking! The nature of the illness varies somewhat over time. The panic attacks only seemed to happen when I was in a room with a large group of people. So quitting school largely removed me from those situations. I was diagnosed as Bipolar 2 in 1997 by a psychiatrist in Manhattan, where I was living with my girlfriend. I started having true bipolar symptoms in USAF Basic Training but made it through (talk about rough), then years later working as a developer, I got to a point where I could just not deal with people. One of the signature characteristics of bipolar (and other similar disorders) is some form of paranoia. People at work would make some mild critical comment and my head would be spinning for days full of anger and fear and pondering what I should have said. The NY psychiatrist asked me just a few questions: 'When was your first clinical depressive episode' (19), and 'are you second-guessing yourself a lot' (Yes. A manifestation of paranoia as noted above). How did I ultimately deal with the disorder? Wonder drugs! Zyprexa since 1997, Wellbutrin for many years, and lamotrigine, a mood stabilizer. Being bipolar is not something that I notice much anymore. One thing I would mention for anyone who is listening and suspects they are bipolar: Bipolar people are vulnerable to trauma and PTSD. What helped me was another miracle (IMO), EMDR. A single one hour EMDR session with a trained therapist can rid you of trauma that would take a year or more of talk therapy to accomplish. Hope that was not too long-winded.
• elviejo 6y ago
  How did you avoid going into "management" ?? Have you ever been "promoted" to project manager?
  • daly 6y ago
    I was "offered" a management job 8 times. I turned them down (despite some of them involving a raise). Why would I go from the top of my skill set (programming) to the bottom of a job I'm unable to perform? I can barely manage myself some days. And I am not a "people person".
• ausjke 6y ago
  A professor at college can work late into his/her 70s or 80s. so should be software engineers. This is truly inspirational, I also plan to keep coding well into 70s/80s, just loving it, or as long as I can.
• RickJWagner 6y ago
  Congratulations on the longevity. Here's to the next 57 years!
• aww_dang 6y ago
  I salute you and all of the others who are still going strong.
• jmartrican 6y ago
  Amazing career. You inspire me. Not only because you have continued this long, but because you have progressed your education and skills. You have veered toward ultra cool programming with machine learning. While I only work on CRUD webservices... which there is a big need for, but lacks the coolness of machine learning. When considering going back to school or focussing efforts on writing software for employers/clients, I always side on writing software. But with your story I will give more weight to going back to school, as it might lead to new avenues. I'm in my 40's and really enjoy these stories from older programmers to help me stay motivated. I like to believe that my best days are always ahead of me, and your story helps me affirm that.
• vidanay 6y ago
  If I can include non-professional, then I have been programming since 5th grade in 1981. Started out on Apple][ and TI-99/4A at school and home respectively.
• GnarfGnarf 6y ago
  You got me beat by two years. I wrote my first FORTRAN program in July 1965. I also wrote code at 12,000 ft altitude. I'm still writing code. Here's my bio: http://www.kyber.ca/rants/UNIVAC%20history.php http://www.kyber.ca/rants/UNIVAC%20history.php
• thoughtsunifica 6y ago
  You're at least old enough to have made the computer that I'm using to do my codding stuff.
• geophile 6y ago
  Being 63, I don't get to say this very often: I am one of the youngest people in this conversation. Delighted to read these stories about even-older-than-me old-timers. Even though I am a relative spring chicken, I'll list my old-timey computing experiences: - Started programming on programmable Wang and Monroe calculators. - PDP-8m in high school. 12k 12-bit words for four terminals running Basic. By special arrangement, I could take over the whole thing and use FORTRAN. - IBM-370 in college, and I spent lots of hours on an IBM 029 keypunch. (That's where I developed my love of loud, clicky keyboards.) - First job with Datasaab (yes, a computer division of Saab), and I programmed in their weird DIL-16 language. - PDP-11 in grad school. - Various VAXen in my early working life. Picked up Emacs in 1985 and now it's in my fingertips. - A buddy and I wrote a book intended to support people who needed to work with a large variety of computing environments, (a real problem my buddy encountered). It was instantly obsolete, as it was published as minis were dying and PCs were becoming dominant. (https://www.amazon.ae/Computer-Professionals-Quick-Reference-Vassiliou/dp/0070672121 https://www.amazon.ae/Computer-Professionals-Quick-Reference...) - Many years in startups, mostly in Unix/Linux environments. Retired now, but still enjoying programming. Having a blast with my current project: https://github.com/geophile/marcel https://github.com/geophile/marcel.
  • elwell 6y ago
    > Picked up Emacs in 1985 and now it's in my fingertips. I don't think this means the dreaded 'emacs pinky'...
    • holtalanm 6y ago
      man, I didn't know emacs pinky was a thing until now.
      • deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
    • geophile 6y ago
      My left pinky is like Arnold Schwarzenegger's bicep, thanks to emacs.
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• suff 6y ago
  You are truly an amazing human being.
• mnault000 6y ago
  Hey man!.. I'm 53, and I design 3D synthetic worlds with physic simulators in python and C++ for the aeronautic industry. That's on top of still running strong webdev with the latest tech. So yeah, what's your worry?
• scared2 6y ago
  Kudos!
• fnord77 6y ago
  this thread makes me feel a bit better about getting old.
• dilandau 6y ago
  I've been doing this for 10 years, but as a 10x ninja I clearly have racked up 100 man-years of shitting out c. Jokes aside, i wish I worked with guys who have so much experience. I'm sure it would be humbling.
• thesz 6y ago
  I had a pleasure working with Andrey Michailovich Smirnov when I was around 36 in 2007. He was 75 at the time and was definitely run circles around me. For example, he was able to produce working compiler for subset of Fortran with compilation into dynamic dataflow machine in two-three weeks. I don't think he was retired.
  • jansan 6y ago
    But was he able to center a div within another div without looking it up on Stackoverflow?
• temp0531 6y ago
  What's the point of trying to get HN to stroke your ego like this? We all want to be seen, sure, but what do you even want validated here? Seems like you followed a pretty standard path and are content. The hiring posts are tomorrow if that's what you're looking for.
• blockchainman 6y ago
  This post is undoubtedly inspiring ! Thank you.
• markbnj 6y ago
  Well you've got me beat anyway :). My hat's off to you. I started as a hobby in 1975 on an HP3000 mainframe, aged 15, and landed my first professional gig in 1987.
• giorgioz 6y ago
  Please someone make a movie about Highlander programmers!
• Commodore_64 6y ago
  Cool, I hope you keep on coding!
• FearNotDaniel 6y ago
  Goals! As a mere 49-year-old who learned to code 38 years ago and only has 15 years' professional experience, it pisses me off to hear people whining about ageism in tech; I'm sure certain sectors of the hotshot startup world are biased towards "bright young things" but as far as I can tell there are many orgs that have a place for grizzled greybeards and I certainly don't plan to ever retire. What would I do? I'm still amazed every day that they pay me good money for doing the thing that has been my hobby since age 11, and even if I didn't need the money I'm sure it would continue to be one of my favourite hobbies that I would do just for fun.
  • codethief 6y ago
    Could elaborate a bit on what got you into the IT industry at age 34 and what you were doing before that? How easy/difficult was it for you to find a good, well-paying job and build a career? > I'm sure certain sectors of the hotshot startup world are biased towards "bright young things" but as far as I can tell there are many orgs that have a place for grizzled greybeards What kind of organizations are you referring to? / How would one go about finding organizations like these? The reason I'm asking is that I'm in my late twenties and considering doing a PhD in mathematical physics before leaving academia for good and entering the IT industry. Like you, I started programming in my early teens and while I kept coding as a hobby and also worked as a part-time software engineer for a startup for ~1½ years, I obviously have much less professional experience under my belt than those "bright young minds" who enter the industry in their early twenties. So I'm somewhat afraid that it'll be even harder for me to enter the industry when I'm in my early/mid thirties than it is right now.
• nkbrd 6y ago
  Curious, why would people throw those fancy abbreviations at you all the time.
• pxsant 6y ago
  A bit of commentary on age discrimination in IT. Of course, it exists. If you are over 40 and go on an interview where the interviewer is a 20 something kid you know what I mean. My approach to age discrimination can be summed up this way. Screw them. I have more experience and knowledge in the field than 99% of the people working in it, especially the managers. And I project that in an interview. I don't give a crap what they think of my age and I make sure they know that. I have what they need and they would be better off recognizing that. Does that attitude work every time? Of course not. But I will be dammed if I will be submissive and put up with age discrimination. To hell with them. If they don't give me a job, some with better sense will. The key is NEVER GIVE UP.
• ariza 6y ago
  cool
• fernly 6y ago
  I started writing systems software (at IBM, in 360 assembler language) in 1967, but I didn't have your stamina, or single-mindedness: I retired in 1997. But I still write code for fun.
• jonjacky 6y ago
  Peter Neumann's first programming job was in 1953. He is still active in CS research, and is co-author of a 2019 paper. http://www.csl.sri.com/users/neumann/#2 http://www.csl.sri.com/users/neumann/#2
• machinesbuddy 6y ago
  Is there any way we can meet you sir? At a conference or meetup etc. You're an inspiration and that should be an honor for someone like me. I'm 35 and 17 years of coding and enjoying every moment of that. Though I sometimes think it's been a long time, I'm getting old, etc. but compared to you, I'm a kid and have a long way to go. My answer to people who ask me "For how long do you think you can code, you need to become a manager or whatever" has always been "Until I die".
• zwilliamson 6y ago
  If you ever start a blog, I would love to read the stories and experiences you are willing to share.
• purplezooey 6y ago
  Nobody said it yet, but you sir, are a badass. I think many of us hope we will be like you.
• tepkool01 6y ago
  I’m curious as to when you knew/decided it was time to fully immerse yourself into a new frame of programmatic thinking. Switching languages is sometimes simple, if the syntax is similar, but what about a low level to a medium level language? IE assembly to java or something. Or perhaps what invited the change to study the operations component versus the analytical component? A lot of people have comfort in their current programming language, and talk down about other languages.. resistant to change. And sometimes they are right because things are evolving too quickly that they could be a fad or become a standard and popular. Again, curious as to when/how you felt it was a good time to learn something new. And this is specifically geared towards your later years. I’m in my early 30s. And with technology changing so much, I’m curious if I’ll still be in touch with it all in 30+ years. And how you seemed to accomplish it. Thanks and I hope I can hear from you!
• CodeWriter23 6y ago
  You have me beat by 20 years, sir.
• eru 6y ago
  My grandfather was born in 1945 and worked as a programmer in East Germany and then unified Germany. He retired a few years ago. He started as a mathematicatian, and probably worked with computers professionally only after 1963. Programming in East Germany was .. interesting. For example, they used punch cards long after they were out of date in the west. My grandfather still has lots of punch card origami he did while waiting for his batch jobs to finish.
• ChrisMarshallNY 6y ago
  Not too shabby. Karma of 884 in one day.
• nsfyn55 6y ago
  My experiences with programmers that have more than 30 years on the job fall into 1 of 2 categories... 1. Constant complaining about the state of things(too much memory, too complicated, back in my day, blah, blah, blah). Why do I have to learn git?, containers?, on, and on, and on. VMs are just fine, what's wrong with java 1.4?, ... exhausting . These programmers probably sucked when they had 5 years of experience and continue to suck today. Crossed arms, learned helplessness level 99. 2. Crazy life long learners that have ridden one technology wave after another for decades on end. When something new comes out they are on it like flies on picnic food. It's my greatest, most sincere hope that I have the energy, temperament to become the latter.
• HarHarVeryFunny 6y ago
  You've got me beat. I learned to program in the late 70's taking adult evening classes at local university (PL/1 punched card batch system), got my first home computer in 1979(NASCOM-1 Z80 1MHz kit - DIY solder assembly), took Math/CS in university, then started programming professionally in 1982, and still going strong. My first job was at Acorn Computers Ltd (UK), writing Acorn ISO Pascal in 6502 assembler, and fast forward almost 40 years currently working for major Telecom writing C++ frameworks/libraries for Linux. Still enjoy it as a hobby too, currently writing my third C++ neural network framework (full blown, GPU accelerated, etc), with lifetime goal of eventually building autonomous robot with animal/human level AI.
• lemanire 6y ago
  I just retired at 78 after 55 years as a programmer, database and GIS specialist. Now I'm using those skills pro bono to help farmers adopt wireless sensors and take advantage of the latest IOT developments with Arduino/Raspberry Pi type technology. Started on punch cards, TTY 33 paper tape and mag tapes on a CDC 6400.
• dmag 6y ago
  Small shout out for Sir Maurice Wilkes, who was involved in some of the earliest stored program concept computers back in the late 40s (designed and built EDSAC in 48/49, and the inventor of microprogramming in the early 50s. Worked in the Computer Lab in Cambridge for years, spent some time in the US, and returned to the lab in the early 2000's. Was still a feature in the labs until not long before his death in 2010, at the grand old age of 97. Would have been around the 60 odd year mark at that stage. I can't speak to how much he was working at that stage, but still a very impressive career and a very impressive individual.
• ddgflorida 6y ago
  My wife and I BOTH have been programming over 40 years.
• RogerFrye 6y ago
  I learned programming in Fall 1961 from Forman Acton at Princeton. Programmed IBM 601 in Bell I, IBM 1620 in Fortran II. First job was summer 1962 at Bolt, Beranek, and Newman programming the PDP-1 in assembly. Never stopped working as a programmer. Main language now is Python. I am machine learning architect at Sigma Labs Inc. I am 80 and I played NIM on a computer built to do ballistics in 1947 at Maxon Corporation.
• RogerFrye 6y ago
  In September 1961, I learned programming from Forman Acton at Princeton. Programmed IBM 601 in Bell I, IBM 1620 and IBM 709 in Fortran II, Algol, COBOL, assembly. First job was July 1962 at Bolt, Beranek, and Newman programming DEC PDP-1 in assembly. Never stopped working as a programmer. Currently programming Linux computers mostly in Python. I am machine learning architect for Sigma Labs, Inc. I am 80. I played NIM in 1947 on the front panel of a ballistics computer at Maxon Corporation.
• specialist 6y ago
  An interview with you would be fantastic. Do any of the computer museums do that? My mom used to interview people, mostly seniors, to capture oral traditions, get first hand accounts. I think the process she used was called "oral history". A simple format that any one could use to do their own interviews. She was long time volunteer for our local Swede-Finn historical org. She figured out how to do this once her parent's friends started passing away. A friend played fiddle and was really into Americana. Most of the musicians were 70+. When they passed, all their lore and many of their songs were lost. So she started recording her friends and capturing their bios, life stories, stories about the music. She self-published a book and cassette combo. Two volumes, IIRC. Just two examples of what I'm suggesting.
  • mikewang 6y ago
    That sounds great. People just is like the cassette/volumes, recording history, which is more vivid.
• observr9 6y ago
  For those in the same boat, any tips you can provide to overcome the commonly cited barriers? For example: maintaining the required mental agility needed to do the job, learning new technologies that come and go, overcoming relevant biases, staying relevant as "less experienced" workers seem sufficient to do the same job, etc.
• elwell 6y ago
  I wonder if ageism will lessen as there are so many programmers now getting older. I suppose it's mostly in the hands of the hiring manager. I don't know... it's just a thought; would be curious to hear others' opinions.
• elwell 6y ago
  Question: How has your enjoyment of programming ebbed and flowed over the years?
• meritganset 6y ago
  No, you're not. And did you expect asking this question here on HN to get you a real answer to your question? Or did you just feel like getting a quick internet ego massage?
• joyj2nd 6y ago
  Ah now. Dick comparisons between old men. WTF?