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I definitely want to keep making this kind of money, and if anything problems like stress have actually become less of an issue as my pay increases. Jobs that

I definitely want to keep making this kind of money, and if anything problems like stress have actually become less of an issue as my pay increases. Jobs that value programmers tend to understand how best to extract value from them (and death marches generally aren't it). I also agree that the lack of older programmers has more to do with the growing number of new programmers than with attrition of older programmers (though certainly that does happen as well). The main problem I think programmers face as they approach 50 is the "half-life" of their knowledge and skills. So much of the frameworks, platforms, etc. that we use will become obsolete in 5 years. Very little of what we have learned now will still be relevant in 20-30 years. Other professions have this problem as well, but I think few have it as bad as programmers. It is possible to stay on top of the latest trends, but that requires some degree of fluid intelligence, and that begins to decline after your mid-twenties (though you can delay that decline somewhat by staying physically active). Crystallized intelligence, on the other hand, lasts well into your 60's. It's therefore in our best interests to make sure we learn knowledge and skills that have a longer half-life.

robotnikman 5y ago
Anecdotal, but where I work, I noticed most of the older programmers are working on systems like AS/400. Makes sense though, many such systems are still running and functional in many businesses, and they have a skill that few have nowadays. From what I've gathered from talking to them, IBM still provides regular updates for these systems, and while change is slower than would be experienced by a web developer, they still are learning and adapting to changes made in these updates, and have to adapt to interfacing with new technologies adopted by other areas of the business.
- lliamander 5y ago
  I tend to leverage the Lindy Effect in determining which skills and technology are worth learning: if it's been around for a long time, it probably will continue to be around for a long time more. There are other reasons why I personally might not choose that route, but that longevity is an advantage.
paulpauper 5y ago
A lot of programing builds off the same sort of syntax. Learning new languages becomes easier once you got a few down.
- lliamander 5y ago
  A lot of programming languages are also very different. In addition to standard languages like Java, Javascript, and Python, I've also done work with Erlang, Prolog, and XSLT. Those require very different mental models from a typical procedural mindset. At the same time, learning even very radically different programming languages isn't really that big of a deal. It takes a few months at most to get reasonably productive. Even still, it's nice to know that some of the investment in technical knowledge has paid off. I'm not just thinking of programming languages either, but platforms, protocols, frameworks, architectures, etc. Here are some examples of technical knowledge that I think is wise to invest in and can be useful for many years: - Unix (command line and systems programming) - Relational databases/SQL - Internet application and network architecture - the actor model for concurrency - MVC - text editors like Emacs and Vi - discrete mathematics - distributed version control - UML (specifically sequence diagrams) - tools for creating visualizations from text (graphviz, plantUML, etc.) These are things that I have been able to take from job to job, and have been useful regardless of the programming language, framework, or platform we are using.
plorkyeran 5y ago
> if anything problems like stress have actually become less of an issue as my pay increases That's been my experience too; pay and stress have been somewhat inversely proportional. Some of this is just a natural result of being financially secure enough that being fired isn't something I have to fear, but it's also that companies which pay poorly also treat their employees poorly in other ways too.

robotnikman 5y ago

Anecdotal, but where I work, I noticed most of the older programmers are working on systems like AS/400. Makes sense though, many such systems are still running and functional in many businesses, and they have a skill that few have nowadays. From what I've gathered from talking to them, IBM still provides regular updates for these systems, and while change is slower than would be experienced by a web developer, they still are learning and adapting to changes made in these updates, and have to adapt to interfacing with new technologies adopted by other areas of the business.

lliamander 5y ago
I tend to leverage the Lindy Effect in determining which skills and technology are worth learning: if it's been around for a long time, it probably will continue to be around for a long time more. There are other reasons why I personally might not choose that route, but that longevity is an advantage.

paulpauper 5y ago

A lot of programing builds off the same sort of syntax. Learning new languages becomes easier once you got a few down.

lliamander 5y ago
A lot of programming languages are also very different. In addition to standard languages like Java, Javascript, and Python, I've also done work with Erlang, Prolog, and XSLT. Those require very different mental models from a typical procedural mindset. At the same time, learning even very radically different programming languages isn't really that big of a deal. It takes a few months at most to get reasonably productive. Even still, it's nice to know that some of the investment in technical knowledge has paid off. I'm not just thinking of programming languages either, but platforms, protocols, frameworks, architectures, etc. Here are some examples of technical knowledge that I think is wise to invest in and can be useful for many years: - Unix (command line and systems programming) - Relational databases/SQL - Internet application and network architecture - the actor model for concurrency - MVC - text editors like Emacs and Vi - discrete mathematics - distributed version control - UML (specifically sequence diagrams) - tools for creating visualizations from text (graphviz, plantUML, etc.) These are things that I have been able to take from job to job, and have been useful regardless of the programming language, framework, or platform we are using.

plorkyeran 5y ago

> if anything problems like stress have actually become less of an issue as my pay increases That's been my experience too; pay and stress have been somewhat inversely proportional. Some of this is just a natural result of being financially secure enough that being fired isn't something I have to fear, but it's also that companies which pay poorly also treat their employees poorly in other ways too.