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In contrast to the author, I find software development at 50 to be an amazing experience. I am more patient and have the mental flexibility to learn things whic

In contrast to the author, I find software development at 50 to be an amazing experience. I am more patient and have the mental flexibility to learn things which were much harder for me 10-20 years ago. That was about the last time I developed in C++ and I found it excruciating then. Today, I find it exhilarating and intuitive. Also unexpected is I find there is a sense of more immediate gratification. Perhaps it is because I'm not dealing with layers of modern libraries or spending 80% of my time trying to sort through build errors caused by someone updating a dependency I didn't know I had. I can see visible progress every day. It reminds me very much of developing in the 90s and 2000s. Being financially secure also plays a role. I don't have to work (and in fact, I took much of Covid off), but I do because I enjoy it so much. Consequently, I have zero stress over day-to-day matters. I have found that work, decoupled from finances, can be incredibly rewarding.

mmcconnell1618 4y ago
I really enjoyed watching the Handmade Hero (https://handmadehero.org/ https://handmadehero.org/) series about creating a game from scratch without all of the external libraries and dependencies. There is something refreshing about having both the understanding and control of all the parts of your project. I feel your pain on constant library and dependency updates.
sshine 4y ago
Thank you for this positive story from the other side of 50. I was always worried that I'd lose my edge the older I got. But with age comes financial independence, emotional stability, experience with the cost of a decision, and the authority to make them instead of always be subject to the decisions of others. I'm 37 and have never worked harder. I look forward to having more time to do spare-time projects and go back to teaching, but there's just so much I'd rather do for other people right now. I can't imagine it changes the next 20 years, only that my role gets more organizational.
CharlieDigital 4y ago
> In contrast to the author, I find software development at 50 to be an amazing experience. I am more patient and have the mental flexibility to learn things which were much harder for me 10-20 years ago. I feel the same, but at 40 now. During the pandemic, I left a position that I was in for almost a decade on a tech stack that I was using for almost a decade. The first few months felt bewildering; yarn, NPM, Vite, React, Vue, Svelte, AWS, GCP, Azure, Functions, Containers, Docker, Kubernetes, on and on! But as I let go of any dogmatism, I quickly adapted to new tooling, new techniques, new languages, and new platforms. I went from building on-prem enterprise solutions deployed to VMWare to building cloud solutions in AWS, Azure, and GCP (yes, all of them) at various VC-backed startups (including a YC company). I came out of the experience completely renewed with an incredible drive to just create software now. Rather than seeing the complexity that the author sees in the current environment, I see options and there are definitely some options which, IMO, make it even easier and better than ever to be a developer [0]. If code is magic, we have more spells, ingredients, and tomes of magic at our disposal than ever. A hard part is navigating that landscape, but it has been so rewarding. I've been writing prolifically over the last year as a side effect of that aggressive learning. I feel more empowered now to create great software than I ever have. [0] Google Cloud Run API from 0 to cloud in < 7 minutes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlnEm7JyvyY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlnEm7JyvyY
raxxorraxor 4y ago
Not yet there, but I have the impression that older devs are vastly more popular with people outside of development. Customers for example, those tend to not take younger people that seriously. I believe it is different in the US though, but in my country you have to be older to have your ideas taken more seriously.

mmcconnell1618 4y ago

I really enjoyed watching the Handmade Hero (https://handmadehero.org/ https://handmadehero.org/) series about creating a game from scratch without all of the external libraries and dependencies. There is something refreshing about having both the understanding and control of all the parts of your project. I feel your pain on constant library and dependency updates.

sshine 4y ago

Thank you for this positive story from the other side of 50. I was always worried that I'd lose my edge the older I got. But with age comes financial independence, emotional stability, experience with the cost of a decision, and the authority to make them instead of always be subject to the decisions of others. I'm 37 and have never worked harder. I look forward to having more time to do spare-time projects and go back to teaching, but there's just so much I'd rather do for other people right now. I can't imagine it changes the next 20 years, only that my role gets more organizational.

CharlieDigital 4y ago

> In contrast to the author, I find software development at 50 to be an amazing experience. I am more patient and have the mental flexibility to learn things which were much harder for me 10-20 years ago. I feel the same, but at 40 now. During the pandemic, I left a position that I was in for almost a decade on a tech stack that I was using for almost a decade. The first few months felt bewildering; yarn, NPM, Vite, React, Vue, Svelte, AWS, GCP, Azure, Functions, Containers, Docker, Kubernetes, on and on! But as I let go of any dogmatism, I quickly adapted to new tooling, new techniques, new languages, and new platforms. I went from building on-prem enterprise solutions deployed to VMWare to building cloud solutions in AWS, Azure, and GCP (yes, all of them) at various VC-backed startups (including a YC company). I came out of the experience completely renewed with an incredible drive to just create software now. Rather than seeing the complexity that the author sees in the current environment, I see options and there are definitely some options which, IMO, make it even easier and better than ever to be a developer [0]. If code is magic, we have more spells, ingredients, and tomes of magic at our disposal than ever. A hard part is navigating that landscape, but it has been so rewarding. I've been writing prolifically over the last year as a side effect of that aggressive learning. I feel more empowered now to create great software than I ever have. [0] Google Cloud Run API from 0 to cloud in < 7 minutes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlnEm7JyvyY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlnEm7JyvyY

raxxorraxor 4y ago

Not yet there, but I have the impression that older devs are vastly more popular with people outside of development. Customers for example, those tend to not take younger people that seriously. I believe it is different in the US though, but in my country you have to be older to have your ideas taken more seriously.