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I first encountered the term "programmer-archeologist" on an IRC server in the 2000s, since the server was named after a Vernor Vinge character. >>> The Progra

I first encountered the term "programmer-archeologist" on an IRC server in the 2000s, since the server was named after a Vernor Vinge character. >>> The Programmer-Archaeologist churns through this maddening nest of ancient languages and hidden/forgotten tools to repair existing programs or to find odd things that can be turned to unanticipated uses. - lambda-the-ultimate.org At the time, I was a freshman in college studying "Classics" - dead languages and history, like Latin and Ancient Greek. I dropped out that same year, flabbergasted and excited that I could experience the same archeological thrill on a much shorter time scale. All I needed to learn was some system engineering... So I did that. Been here ever since, loving every day that I got to make some beautiful jank soup of software work for another epoch. P.S. I was on the IRC server trying to pirate some music and textbooks I couldn't afford to buy. Wound up gainfully employed throughout my 20s, able to retire in my 30s (programmer / data archeology pays well)

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LegitShady 3y ago
me trying to make sense of an ancient application built on a version of oracle so old I should have put its extended end of life date in school years ago and oh my god is that cobol wtf I thought they said this was fortran...
- grepLeigh 3y ago
  You'll either go insane staring into that abyss, or achieve enlightenment!
scruple 3y ago
I have two main tasks for this year. One was to dig through a system that was built a decade ago and modernize it. I just wrapped that up. The end result has eliminated multiple points of failure and unnecessary process, and has enabled my team to completely own the solution end to end. The other task is to dig into and modernize a system that was originally started over 2 decades ago. I've got some other, minor tasks to get through this month and next and am excited to get onto this next task around August. I'm ~20 years into this career and I am have more fun in the job today than I ever have before.
anthk 3y ago
Ditto. Spaniard here, so we have volumes and literal tons of history. But GNU/Linux and using 15yo old software which had years of geekeery and culture such as Emacs in y2k was magical. Code, math puzzles, a chatbot, fortune files, games like nethack (playing slashem and Tome2 was more fun than reading LOTR at 16)... It was live history working in my hands and in a usable way after Euclid and Newton. No need to buy hardware and materials to do technical stuff, a computer was enough. And not even a good one. My cwm+tmux setup would still work in a Pentium 2.

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LegitShady 3y ago

me trying to make sense of an ancient application built on a version of oracle so old I should have put its extended end of life date in school years ago and oh my god is that cobol wtf I thought they said this was fortran...

grepLeigh 3y ago
You'll either go insane staring into that abyss, or achieve enlightenment!

scruple 3y ago

I have two main tasks for this year. One was to dig through a system that was built a decade ago and modernize it. I just wrapped that up. The end result has eliminated multiple points of failure and unnecessary process, and has enabled my team to completely own the solution end to end. The other task is to dig into and modernize a system that was originally started over 2 decades ago. I've got some other, minor tasks to get through this month and next and am excited to get onto this next task around August. I'm ~20 years into this career and I am have more fun in the job today than I ever have before.

anthk 3y ago

Ditto. Spaniard here, so we have volumes and literal tons of history. But GNU/Linux and using 15yo old software which had years of geekeery and culture such as Emacs in y2k was magical. Code, math puzzles, a chatbot, fortune files, games like nethack (playing slashem and Tome2 was more fun than reading LOTR at 16)... It was live history working in my hands and in a usable way after Euclid and Newton. No need to buy hardware and materials to do technical stuff, a computer was enough. And not even a good one. My cwm+tmux setup would still work in a Pentium 2.