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Yes I Still Want To Be Doing This at 56

214 points by jerhewet 14y ago

tubbo 14y ago
"Will programming still exist in 31 more years?" Jeez, I hope we figure out an easier way of doing this by then. ;)
hockeybias 14y ago
Ditto!
Tomis02 14y ago
Here we go again. Conversation through HN submissions.
- saraid216 14y ago
  I wouldn't call it a conversation. He doesn't remotely address a single point in the original post. We could call it a presidential debate, maybe?
  - Aron 14y ago
    I probably should just upvote you but I chuckled aloud.
f4stjack 14y ago
Actually burning midnight oil is a myth. I mean we all know the myth: You grab your coffee, black as night and sweet as sin, you sit in front of your computer with your favourite IDE on. Then you code until the sun sets and you go home with a majestic smile on your face. Because, you - the lonely coder - has saved the day. Yet again. I mean I was really into this image when I was 20. Now, after had some experience in the field I see that, this very act should be resorted when you have no choice. If you have a tight deadline and all you have to do is code, I mean not think and code but just code - no abstractization is involved, this works. But if you have to plan-code a project this approach sucks. Because you get tired as the night progresses and tired minds do make mistakes. A lot. So while the bugs coalesce you go into smart fixes. Because it has to end tomorrow, right? Then when you return to your code one week/month/year later you'll say: - What the heck have I done here?! Resting is as important as coding for a coder IMHO. No need to burn ourselves out for a myth. And yes I want to do it when I am 50 or 60.
- wagerlabs 14y ago
  I once spent the night on the stern of a sailboat with 6 cans of Red Bull, debugging a Mac driver for a piece of hardware that may end up being used by Foxconn to test iPhones. I would have been much more comfortable in the cabin but the marina WiFi network didn't reach that far. Why burn the midnight oil? It was either that or no sailing out next morning to spend a week at sea.
  - elliottcarlson 14y ago
    That just seems highly irresponsible though - you are working on adrenaline and caffeine to get a product out so you can go away and be offline for a week right after. I've been in your shoes before, and tight deadlines can warrant the need to just get shit done - but I also make sure I am around after some brief rest to handle any additional issues.
- Swizec 14y ago
  An interesting thing I've noticed is that burning the midnight oil works really well if I haven't been coding all day. It can work marvelously - it's quiet, nobody bothers me, the internet is asleep and I have a clear focus. But if I've already spent the whole day thinking, then decision fatigue kills my productivity completely. Some might say I'm just tired, but it isn't related to how much sleep I'd had, just how much time I've spent thinking.
  - jaggederest 14y ago
    Or even worse, spent the whole day dealing with bureaucracy and mundanity and meetings and crisis management... Forget about getting any actual work done.
- wglb 14y ago
  Actually, it is not a myth. I have done this, more when I was younger, but it still happens occasionally. One reason for the midnight oil is that the phone stop ringing, everybody else goes home, there are no distractions. Another reason is that the business demands it. Let me give you an example. There is a story that the folks at WordPerfect, which had (and still has, if my mother is any indication) fiercely loyal customers. They had a very family-oriented company culture, and nobody stayed past 5. Microsoft did not go home at five, except maybe at 5 am. Microsoft ate their lunch. In several situations, I could not get access to computers until after the day shift went home. In Portland, while on co-op during college, I would walk to work at about 0200. The path took me past a bakery that was in full-on baking mode. While building a real-time medical data system, we had one production computer and a second computer that was occasionally used for production at night, so we worked nights to integrate both parts of production so that the other computer would be available for development all day. And sometimes a problem will grab you and not let you go. The story of fluidics has as its beginning a 36 hour creative burst by its major contributor. And there are problems that I have worked on that have a multi-hour daily mental ramp-up. The myth part of this is that you can get away with doing this constantly. You can't. As you say this very act should be resorted when you have no choice. What the midnight oil has taught us in the industry is that the best programming is done in an environment free of interruptions, and that the plentiful availability of development equipment removes scheduling constraints previously imposed on programming. And I am older than those two numbers and still occasionally pull the midnight oil.
omellet 14y ago
I'll never stop coding. I may not continue as a professional, but there will always be the creative itch to scratch. Creative in the sense that I feel compelled to create, not that it's necessarily fine art. It's not limited to software, either. I love working on my house, I like to cook, to tinker with hardware projects. That 'click' I get from creating something is just so rewarding, and I hope that will always be true.
henrik_w 14y ago
On the subject of working a lot of hours, this article argues that a 40-hour work week is optimal (you don't get more done even if you work longer hours) http://www.alternet.org/story/154518/why_we_have_to_go_back_to_a_40-hour_work_week_to_keep_our_sanity?paging=off http://www.alternet.org/story/154518/why_we_have_to_go_back_...
- thoughtsimple 14y ago
  Yeah. Everyone is different. I don't have a spouse, kids or dog. I like it when I'm working on a problem and the world goes away for 10-12 hours at a time. I can get a lot of work done in a week where I work 60-70 hours. I'm sure many people can't and on average, 40 hours may be optimal but there is no way that 40 hours is optimal for me when I'm doing something interesting. Having said that, I've also been burnt out working for startups. You can do 50-60 hours a week for many months but at some point you need a break. I've done it for 18 months but after that, I was pretty useless for several months. One way I take a break is to work as a software contractor (which I'm doing now.) This pays well and is almost always a 40-hour per week job. It also tends to be pretty boring but it gives me a chance to recharge. BTW, to relate this back to the topic, I just turned 50 and hope to continue writing software for at least another 20 years.
  - cachichas 14y ago
    I for one do have a spouse and a child, no dog though :( I have worked probably the same amount of hours when I was younger but due to other responsibilities that came up after I got married, I had to stick with the 35 - 40 hours work weeks. I was recently involved with a very small shop (5 people, 3 full time developers) and it really took a toll on me. I got caught up in a project that had no end in sight and really caused me great frustration and a sense of not accomplishing anything which contributed immensely in my decision to walk away. Right now I'm taking a long break but still update myself with what is going on in tech & programming in particular. I have always been a coder (only job I ever had) and I can't see myself doing anything else. BTW, I just turned 50 myself. So here's to another 20 years of writing software. Cheers!
- xxiao 14y ago
rbellio 14y ago
It's really interesting to see the perspective of an older peer when it comes to development. I've been writing code since I was 10 (19 years ago) and have been doing it professionally for about eight years. To look back sometimes and see the differences in myself as a coder and wonder about what it will look like going forward is a favorite wandering for my brain. I think the one thing that I find most common in my career has been coworkers, within 10 years of retirement, that have just given up and no longer put in what's needed to be a coder. I enjoy the company of someone who has had more experience (it's part of how you learn) and love to hear about the battles that the people before me had to fight. I start my day by asking myself some questions. Where is the technology at right now? Where is it going? How does it relate to my job? How does it relate to my interests? How does it relate to what I've done in the past? Where am I at as a developer? The problem is that people stop asking themselves all of these questions and start weighting towards a few in particular.
- SoftwareMaven 14y ago
  I'm in the middle now. I've had several opportunities to work with software developers in their 50's. Without fail, the experience was good. Work at good companies, and the people you work with will be good.
clueless123 14y ago
Good coding is half art, 1/2 science. During creative periods I can go on coding for hours with out even realizing it. When I work like that, I easily go through the night pulling the "midnight oil". The only difference between now (at 50) and then, is the recovery time from the all nighter. Lately I tend to be less motivated to do it so often.
- equalarrow 14y ago
  Absolutely, I always refer to coding as 'creative logic'. :) The Art of Happiness At Work by the Dalai Lama and Howard Cutler is a great book. It talks about flow/being in the zone and after reading about that, I've really felt lucky to have experienced that mode of pure focus and true moment oriented existence. I was never a person that stayed up all night coding, though. I'm a morning person and my body/mind were always like "no way". But, that being said, I have woken up many times at 3 or 4 and cranked all the way through until 7 or 8 that night. So I think it just depends on your natural biorhythms. I'm not 50 yet, but already am finding it harder and harder to get a 'good day' of coding in with a wife and 8mo old son. Besides distractions galore, my next big loss is sleep. I definitely feel that side and I'm even having a hard time sometimes remembering things in conversation. I think of it as not having my ECC ram. :) However, like many other postings, I will probably code until I die or until I just can't understand anything anymore. Then I'll probably just back to my 8-bit machines and assembly; the days when things were simpler. The quintessential old man out of step. Heh.
nissimk 14y ago
Thanks for the post. It's inspirational to see something like this. You seem to have a very good attitude about working and software development / learning and it helps me to feel better and overcome my own sometimes negative attitude. I'll be reading your whole site.
kokey 14y ago
I read that as someone who really wasn't able to continue being a chemist into his 50s.
cinbun8 14y ago
Its a matter of perspective and preference. When you are young you don't mind fidgeting with things, leaning their inner working and trying to get something to work. When something is done you can point to it proudly and cry 'I did that'. As you get older you start to lose your patience with technology and sympathize with the user a little. Your perspective could be - 'Why wont this just work !'. Perhaps it is a matter of patience. I would not know since I'm not 56 yet. OP - A toast to the fire that is still burning within you. May it keep burning for a long time. Have fun writing code.
vowelless 14y ago
I have been coding since I was 11... I am 23 now. I cannot imagine a different outcome for myself.
donebizkit 14y ago
Yesterday's post was closer to the actuality of a programmer than this one. To reiterate what I said yesterday, when you are coding professionally, you don't choose what technologies to use, you don't pick projects that itch your creative side. You're just part of a production steam roll. Passion is irrelevant in this discussion. What matters is how fast you can deliver and whether you are more billable than the next guy. The other parameter in this equation is Money. I am sure I can find a low stress dev job working on a project that I am actually interested in but at age 50 i don't want to be living on medium wage making ends meet. I'd rather work on a high stress job, while I am young, with a decent salary, giving it all I have and by 40 I'd have secured my future enough that I can do something else ... my two cents
- dasil003 14y ago
  Programing is power. Why do big tech companies pay $250k for basically a risk-free position to a good programmer? The key is knowing how to apply that power to making money. When you are young you put in the hours to learn the craft. It's like any craft really, you need to put in a lot of time and effort to get good at it. At the same time you should be learning something about the world and how programming can solve problems in it. Maybe in business or something else. But at any rate, by the time you're 40 you should know how to make programming work for you. You definitely don't want to isolate yourself in a world of code without understanding how it succeeds or fails to provide ROI, otherwise you'll hit 40 and still stuck on the hamster wheel (or at best with a temporary nest egg).
- SomeCallMeTim 14y ago
  >you don't choose what technologies to use I do, at least some of the time. >you don't pick projects that itch your creative side Right I'm doing contract work, so actually I do tend to pick the interesting projects. Before that I had a job where I specified the technology that I was using -- and that everyone else had to use. Before that I picked a job that used technology I wanted to be using. And so on...I haven't been "forced" to use a technology that I didn't think appropriate for a long time (unless you count the idiot decisions by Google and Apple to use Java and Objective C, respectively, but I've been minimizing my contamination by both). And it was exactly passion and an urge to learn, just as the guy described in the article, that enabled me to be in this position. My contract work pays up to $125/hour, and I'm rapidly approaching age 50, so what were you saying about "medium wage"? Or do you work for Wall Street and make twice that now? Or maybe you've got the wrong job? Or you don't have a passion for programming? As he said, if you don't have it, you'll burn yourself out and go elsewhere.
rooshdi 14y ago
Boy, if I could make it to 40 that would be a doozy. I do wonder if programming will be obsolete in a few decades and if the things we've programmed will start programming us. Well, I guess they already do in a way.
tlogan 14y ago
The only problem for being a programmer in 40s and 50s is that it is really hard to find a job. This pretty much the only problem, but I guess that is a big problem :(
- diego 14y ago
  That really depends. On the internet nobody needs to know that you are 40 or 50. Finding a permanent job at a SV company may be harder, but freelancing / contracting is not.
  - tlogan 14y ago
    That is 100% true. Unfortunately, large chunk of new (and good paying) jobs are created by these new companies which require "cultural fit".
    - michaelochurch 14y ago
      I would argue that a company that rejects a competent 50-year-old on "cultural fit" is not worth considering unless you're desperate. That's douchey even by VC-funded startup standards. That comment says nothing about what percentage of companies are like that. I don't have enough data to know if they're common or rare. I'd guess that the signal:noise ratio of jobs available at age 50 gets better. Ninety percent of software jobs are shitty, but I also think that companies offering shitty jobs are more likely to age-discriminate, because older people are not likely to fall into the premature emotional investment trap.
- donaldc 14y ago
  Is this your personal experience?
  - tlogan 14y ago
    Yes.
- SomeCallMeTim 14y ago
scott_meade 14y ago
I'm 43. I concur Mr. Wulf that "large scale, high stress coding" is "a stupid person's game". Now, some people find a thrill in coding under pressure. More power to 'em. Yet we see too many developers accidentally ending up in high stress coding situations and thinking that is the norm and accepting it as their fate. There is no reason it should be this way. Professional programming should be and can be fun, enjoyable, creative. As Mr. Wulf states, our profession offers an unusually wide variety of projects, tools, teams, and working environments. Choose poorly from among this variety and you'll burn out. Choose wisely and you'll have a long, enjoyable career with plenty of extra mind and body capacity for other interests. It's up to you.
nhebb 14y ago
> Every morning I read a number of websites devoted to technology and programming to see what is new. I looked over at his sidebar hoping to see a blogroll. Remember when people used to do that ... about 5 years ago? I wouldn't call it irony, but reading about coding at 56 while getting nostalgic for 5 year old internet practices is a strange juxtaposition.
michaelochurch 14y ago
"But large scale, high stress coding? I may have to admit that's a young man's game." No, it's a stupid person's game (sure it's mostly men, but not 100%). I'm 55 and have been coding professionally since 1981 and started in school in 1973 or so. One thing I've learned for sure is that coding yourself to death is not worth it in the end. People who want to be coding in their 50s should follow this advice. It's burning yourself out on arbitrary deadlines for meaningless business bullshit that pushes a lot of us out. A 5-year burnout, at any age, is pretty much impossible to recover from in this industry. Programming becomes less bipolar (for lack of a better word) as you get older because you stop getting emotionally invested in things that don't deserve it, and you also become more willing to steal an education at work (thus ensuring that, regardless of what your project does, you'll be fine).
- jamesmcn 14y ago
  People who want to be coding at all should follow this advice. An easy way to turbocharge a team of hot-shot young developers is as follows: Tell them to not come in over the weekend (unless there is a seriously important deadline that cannot be handled any other way, and this has been discussed with the team). Tell them to go home in time to be able to go out to dinner or catch a movie (tricky, because odds are good that they are coming in to work late, and we do want everyone doing roughly 8 hour days, five days a week). Tell them to spend less time coding and more time planning. It can take a few weeks for the improvements to materialize, but overall productivity will go up. Code quality will go up. Energy and enthusiasm will go up. Once you see these upticks, you can work on all the other things that the team needs to do to improve their code. And then when the shit hits the fan and you do need to push the team, there will be room to push them. They will have energy reserves they can draw on. They will have trust in you as a manager. They will be able to draw on that extra 10%. Marathon coding is a great way to deliver a terrible product that is hard to maintain
semtec 14y ago
The key to enjoying any endeavor is working SMART. I love to code, but I also love not to code. The right mix of hard work and 'laziness' should keep great programmers enthusiastic and sharp way past 56!
- lttlrck 14y ago
  a little procrastination helps too.
angeladur 14y ago
My dad is 49 and he still works on projects till 11-12 in the night. Ask him and he always says 'I am doing a build, no idea how long will it take'
happywolf 14y ago
I am curious which area the OP has been working on. I would say the work pressure is a function of the management, the requirements, and the sector where you work on. For example, mobile applications tend to have shorter release cycles, and therefore a much hectic schedule.
- cunac 14y ago
  shorter release cycle doesn't have to be hectic; what makes it hectic is unreasonable number of features which is poor planing. You will end up coding 24/7 in cycle of any length if workload to deliver all in given time frame is greater than what you can deliver working only regular hours. That is poor planing regardless of sector and length of release cycle
angeladur 14y ago
Are unpaid overtime common in the States?

214 points by jerhewet 14y ago

tubbo 14y ago

"Will programming still exist in 31 more years?" Jeez, I hope we figure out an easier way of doing this by then. ;)

hockeybias 14y ago

Ditto!

Tomis02 14y ago

Here we go again. Conversation through HN submissions.

saraid216 14y ago
I wouldn't call it a conversation. He doesn't remotely address a single point in the original post. We could call it a presidential debate, maybe?
- Aron 14y ago
  I probably should just upvote you but I chuckled aloud.

f4stjack 14y ago

Actually burning midnight oil is a myth. I mean we all know the myth: You grab your coffee, black as night and sweet as sin, you sit in front of your computer with your favourite IDE on. Then you code until the sun sets and you go home with a majestic smile on your face. Because, you - the lonely coder - has saved the day. Yet again. I mean I was really into this image when I was 20. Now, after had some experience in the field I see that, this very act should be resorted when you have no choice. If you have a tight deadline and all you have to do is code, I mean not think and code but just code - no abstractization is involved, this works. But if you have to plan-code a project this approach sucks. Because you get tired as the night progresses and tired minds do make mistakes. A lot. So while the bugs coalesce you go into smart fixes. Because it has to end tomorrow, right? Then when you return to your code one week/month/year later you'll say: - What the heck have I done here?! Resting is as important as coding for a coder IMHO. No need to burn ourselves out for a myth. And yes I want to do it when I am 50 or 60.

wagerlabs 14y ago
I once spent the night on the stern of a sailboat with 6 cans of Red Bull, debugging a Mac driver for a piece of hardware that may end up being used by Foxconn to test iPhones. I would have been much more comfortable in the cabin but the marina WiFi network didn't reach that far. Why burn the midnight oil? It was either that or no sailing out next morning to spend a week at sea.
- elliottcarlson 14y ago
  That just seems highly irresponsible though - you are working on adrenaline and caffeine to get a product out so you can go away and be offline for a week right after. I've been in your shoes before, and tight deadlines can warrant the need to just get shit done - but I also make sure I am around after some brief rest to handle any additional issues.
Swizec 14y ago
An interesting thing I've noticed is that burning the midnight oil works really well if I haven't been coding all day. It can work marvelously - it's quiet, nobody bothers me, the internet is asleep and I have a clear focus. But if I've already spent the whole day thinking, then decision fatigue kills my productivity completely. Some might say I'm just tired, but it isn't related to how much sleep I'd had, just how much time I've spent thinking.
- jaggederest 14y ago
  Or even worse, spent the whole day dealing with bureaucracy and mundanity and meetings and crisis management... Forget about getting any actual work done.
wglb 14y ago
Actually, it is not a myth. I have done this, more when I was younger, but it still happens occasionally. One reason for the midnight oil is that the phone stop ringing, everybody else goes home, there are no distractions. Another reason is that the business demands it. Let me give you an example. There is a story that the folks at WordPerfect, which had (and still has, if my mother is any indication) fiercely loyal customers. They had a very family-oriented company culture, and nobody stayed past 5. Microsoft did not go home at five, except maybe at 5 am. Microsoft ate their lunch. In several situations, I could not get access to computers until after the day shift went home. In Portland, while on co-op during college, I would walk to work at about 0200. The path took me past a bakery that was in full-on baking mode. While building a real-time medical data system, we had one production computer and a second computer that was occasionally used for production at night, so we worked nights to integrate both parts of production so that the other computer would be available for development all day. And sometimes a problem will grab you and not let you go. The story of fluidics has as its beginning a 36 hour creative burst by its major contributor. And there are problems that I have worked on that have a multi-hour daily mental ramp-up. The myth part of this is that you can get away with doing this constantly. You can't. As you say this very act should be resorted when you have no choice. What the midnight oil has taught us in the industry is that the best programming is done in an environment free of interruptions, and that the plentiful availability of development equipment removes scheduling constraints previously imposed on programming. And I am older than those two numbers and still occasionally pull the midnight oil.

omellet 14y ago

I'll never stop coding. I may not continue as a professional, but there will always be the creative itch to scratch. Creative in the sense that I feel compelled to create, not that it's necessarily fine art. It's not limited to software, either. I love working on my house, I like to cook, to tinker with hardware projects. That 'click' I get from creating something is just so rewarding, and I hope that will always be true.

henrik_w 14y ago

On the subject of working a lot of hours, this article argues that a 40-hour work week is optimal (you don't get more done even if you work longer hours) http://www.alternet.org/story/154518/why_we_have_to_go_back_to_a_40-hour_work_week_to_keep_our_sanity?paging=off http://www.alternet.org/story/154518/why_we_have_to_go_back_...

thoughtsimple 14y ago
Yeah. Everyone is different. I don't have a spouse, kids or dog. I like it when I'm working on a problem and the world goes away for 10-12 hours at a time. I can get a lot of work done in a week where I work 60-70 hours. I'm sure many people can't and on average, 40 hours may be optimal but there is no way that 40 hours is optimal for me when I'm doing something interesting. Having said that, I've also been burnt out working for startups. You can do 50-60 hours a week for many months but at some point you need a break. I've done it for 18 months but after that, I was pretty useless for several months. One way I take a break is to work as a software contractor (which I'm doing now.) This pays well and is almost always a 40-hour per week job. It also tends to be pretty boring but it gives me a chance to recharge. BTW, to relate this back to the topic, I just turned 50 and hope to continue writing software for at least another 20 years.
- cachichas 14y ago
  I for one do have a spouse and a child, no dog though :( I have worked probably the same amount of hours when I was younger but due to other responsibilities that came up after I got married, I had to stick with the 35 - 40 hours work weeks. I was recently involved with a very small shop (5 people, 3 full time developers) and it really took a toll on me. I got caught up in a project that had no end in sight and really caused me great frustration and a sense of not accomplishing anything which contributed immensely in my decision to walk away. Right now I'm taking a long break but still update myself with what is going on in tech & programming in particular. I have always been a coder (only job I ever had) and I can't see myself doing anything else. BTW, I just turned 50 myself. So here's to another 20 years of writing software. Cheers!
xxiao 14y ago

rbellio 14y ago

It's really interesting to see the perspective of an older peer when it comes to development. I've been writing code since I was 10 (19 years ago) and have been doing it professionally for about eight years. To look back sometimes and see the differences in myself as a coder and wonder about what it will look like going forward is a favorite wandering for my brain. I think the one thing that I find most common in my career has been coworkers, within 10 years of retirement, that have just given up and no longer put in what's needed to be a coder. I enjoy the company of someone who has had more experience (it's part of how you learn) and love to hear about the battles that the people before me had to fight. I start my day by asking myself some questions. Where is the technology at right now? Where is it going? How does it relate to my job? How does it relate to my interests? How does it relate to what I've done in the past? Where am I at as a developer? The problem is that people stop asking themselves all of these questions and start weighting towards a few in particular.

SoftwareMaven 14y ago
I'm in the middle now. I've had several opportunities to work with software developers in their 50's. Without fail, the experience was good. Work at good companies, and the people you work with will be good.

clueless123 14y ago

Good coding is half art, 1/2 science. During creative periods I can go on coding for hours with out even realizing it. When I work like that, I easily go through the night pulling the "midnight oil". The only difference between now (at 50) and then, is the recovery time from the all nighter. Lately I tend to be less motivated to do it so often.

equalarrow 14y ago
Absolutely, I always refer to coding as 'creative logic'. :) The Art of Happiness At Work by the Dalai Lama and Howard Cutler is a great book. It talks about flow/being in the zone and after reading about that, I've really felt lucky to have experienced that mode of pure focus and true moment oriented existence. I was never a person that stayed up all night coding, though. I'm a morning person and my body/mind were always like "no way". But, that being said, I have woken up many times at 3 or 4 and cranked all the way through until 7 or 8 that night. So I think it just depends on your natural biorhythms. I'm not 50 yet, but already am finding it harder and harder to get a 'good day' of coding in with a wife and 8mo old son. Besides distractions galore, my next big loss is sleep. I definitely feel that side and I'm even having a hard time sometimes remembering things in conversation. I think of it as not having my ECC ram. :) However, like many other postings, I will probably code until I die or until I just can't understand anything anymore. Then I'll probably just back to my 8-bit machines and assembly; the days when things were simpler. The quintessential old man out of step. Heh.

nissimk 14y ago

Thanks for the post. It's inspirational to see something like this. You seem to have a very good attitude about working and software development / learning and it helps me to feel better and overcome my own sometimes negative attitude. I'll be reading your whole site.

kokey 14y ago

I read that as someone who really wasn't able to continue being a chemist into his 50s.

cinbun8 14y ago

Its a matter of perspective and preference. When you are young you don't mind fidgeting with things, leaning their inner working and trying to get something to work. When something is done you can point to it proudly and cry 'I did that'. As you get older you start to lose your patience with technology and sympathize with the user a little. Your perspective could be - 'Why wont this just work !'. Perhaps it is a matter of patience. I would not know since I'm not 56 yet. OP - A toast to the fire that is still burning within you. May it keep burning for a long time. Have fun writing code.

vowelless 14y ago

I have been coding since I was 11... I am 23 now. I cannot imagine a different outcome for myself.

donebizkit 14y ago

Yesterday's post was closer to the actuality of a programmer than this one. To reiterate what I said yesterday, when you are coding professionally, you don't choose what technologies to use, you don't pick projects that itch your creative side. You're just part of a production steam roll. Passion is irrelevant in this discussion. What matters is how fast you can deliver and whether you are more billable than the next guy. The other parameter in this equation is Money. I am sure I can find a low stress dev job working on a project that I am actually interested in but at age 50 i don't want to be living on medium wage making ends meet. I'd rather work on a high stress job, while I am young, with a decent salary, giving it all I have and by 40 I'd have secured my future enough that I can do something else ... my two cents

dasil003 14y ago
Programing is power. Why do big tech companies pay $250k for basically a risk-free position to a good programmer? The key is knowing how to apply that power to making money. When you are young you put in the hours to learn the craft. It's like any craft really, you need to put in a lot of time and effort to get good at it. At the same time you should be learning something about the world and how programming can solve problems in it. Maybe in business or something else. But at any rate, by the time you're 40 you should know how to make programming work for you. You definitely don't want to isolate yourself in a world of code without understanding how it succeeds or fails to provide ROI, otherwise you'll hit 40 and still stuck on the hamster wheel (or at best with a temporary nest egg).
SomeCallMeTim 14y ago
>you don't choose what technologies to use I do, at least some of the time. >you don't pick projects that itch your creative side Right I'm doing contract work, so actually I do tend to pick the interesting projects. Before that I had a job where I specified the technology that I was using -- and that everyone else had to use. Before that I picked a job that used technology I wanted to be using. And so on...I haven't been "forced" to use a technology that I didn't think appropriate for a long time (unless you count the idiot decisions by Google and Apple to use Java and Objective C, respectively, but I've been minimizing my contamination by both). And it was exactly passion and an urge to learn, just as the guy described in the article, that enabled me to be in this position. My contract work pays up to $125/hour, and I'm rapidly approaching age 50, so what were you saying about "medium wage"? Or do you work for Wall Street and make twice that now? Or maybe you've got the wrong job? Or you don't have a passion for programming? As he said, if you don't have it, you'll burn yourself out and go elsewhere.

rooshdi 14y ago

Boy, if I could make it to 40 that would be a doozy. I do wonder if programming will be obsolete in a few decades and if the things we've programmed will start programming us. Well, I guess they already do in a way.

tlogan 14y ago

The only problem for being a programmer in 40s and 50s is that it is really hard to find a job. This pretty much the only problem, but I guess that is a big problem :(

diego 14y ago
That really depends. On the internet nobody needs to know that you are 40 or 50. Finding a permanent job at a SV company may be harder, but freelancing / contracting is not.
- tlogan 14y ago
  That is 100% true. Unfortunately, large chunk of new (and good paying) jobs are created by these new companies which require "cultural fit".
  - michaelochurch 14y ago
    I would argue that a company that rejects a competent 50-year-old on "cultural fit" is not worth considering unless you're desperate. That's douchey even by VC-funded startup standards. That comment says nothing about what percentage of companies are like that. I don't have enough data to know if they're common or rare. I'd guess that the signal:noise ratio of jobs available at age 50 gets better. Ninety percent of software jobs are shitty, but I also think that companies offering shitty jobs are more likely to age-discriminate, because older people are not likely to fall into the premature emotional investment trap.
donaldc 14y ago
Is this your personal experience?
- tlogan 14y ago
  Yes.
SomeCallMeTim 14y ago

scott_meade 14y ago

I'm 43. I concur Mr. Wulf that "large scale, high stress coding" is "a stupid person's game". Now, some people find a thrill in coding under pressure. More power to 'em. Yet we see too many developers accidentally ending up in high stress coding situations and thinking that is the norm and accepting it as their fate. There is no reason it should be this way. Professional programming should be and can be fun, enjoyable, creative. As Mr. Wulf states, our profession offers an unusually wide variety of projects, tools, teams, and working environments. Choose poorly from among this variety and you'll burn out. Choose wisely and you'll have a long, enjoyable career with plenty of extra mind and body capacity for other interests. It's up to you.

nhebb 14y ago

> Every morning I read a number of websites devoted to technology and programming to see what is new. I looked over at his sidebar hoping to see a blogroll. Remember when people used to do that ... about 5 years ago? I wouldn't call it irony, but reading about coding at 56 while getting nostalgic for 5 year old internet practices is a strange juxtaposition.

michaelochurch 14y ago

"But large scale, high stress coding? I may have to admit that's a young man's game." No, it's a stupid person's game (sure it's mostly men, but not 100%). I'm 55 and have been coding professionally since 1981 and started in school in 1973 or so. One thing I've learned for sure is that coding yourself to death is not worth it in the end. People who want to be coding in their 50s should follow this advice. It's burning yourself out on arbitrary deadlines for meaningless business bullshit that pushes a lot of us out. A 5-year burnout, at any age, is pretty much impossible to recover from in this industry. Programming becomes less bipolar (for lack of a better word) as you get older because you stop getting emotionally invested in things that don't deserve it, and you also become more willing to steal an education at work (thus ensuring that, regardless of what your project does, you'll be fine).

jamesmcn 14y ago
People who want to be coding at all should follow this advice. An easy way to turbocharge a team of hot-shot young developers is as follows: Tell them to not come in over the weekend (unless there is a seriously important deadline that cannot be handled any other way, and this has been discussed with the team). Tell them to go home in time to be able to go out to dinner or catch a movie (tricky, because odds are good that they are coming in to work late, and we do want everyone doing roughly 8 hour days, five days a week). Tell them to spend less time coding and more time planning. It can take a few weeks for the improvements to materialize, but overall productivity will go up. Code quality will go up. Energy and enthusiasm will go up. Once you see these upticks, you can work on all the other things that the team needs to do to improve their code. And then when the shit hits the fan and you do need to push the team, there will be room to push them. They will have energy reserves they can draw on. They will have trust in you as a manager. They will be able to draw on that extra 10%. Marathon coding is a great way to deliver a terrible product that is hard to maintain

semtec 14y ago

The key to enjoying any endeavor is working SMART. I love to code, but I also love not to code. The right mix of hard work and 'laziness' should keep great programmers enthusiastic and sharp way past 56!

lttlrck 14y ago
a little procrastination helps too.

angeladur 14y ago

My dad is 49 and he still works on projects till 11-12 in the night. Ask him and he always says 'I am doing a build, no idea how long will it take'

happywolf 14y ago

I am curious which area the OP has been working on. I would say the work pressure is a function of the management, the requirements, and the sector where you work on. For example, mobile applications tend to have shorter release cycles, and therefore a much hectic schedule.

cunac 14y ago
shorter release cycle doesn't have to be hectic; what makes it hectic is unreasonable number of features which is poor planing. You will end up coding 24/7 in cycle of any length if workload to deliver all in given time frame is greater than what you can deliver working only regular hours. That is poor planing regardless of sector and length of release cycle

angeladur 14y ago

Are unpaid overtime common in the States?