genedangelo

6 ms·

1.
by 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 d
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by 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 p
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by genedangelo 6y ago
I haven't been able to find the colored bar, maybe because of refreshes, but let me suggest you use something that is searchable. That way you could use CTRL-F and then jump from one to the next. Right now, I'm searching for &q
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by genedangelo 6y ago
I wouldn't mind sharing, but I don't want to take the chance that someone in my company could be reading this. I started in 1963 at $1.55 an hour, which was actually pretty good back then. It's mostly been increasing, excep
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by genedangelo 6y ago
I should also mention that I recently bought a Flexispot stand up desk converter. So now I can stand up and work when I want to. It only accommodates two of my monitors, but that's all I really need anyway.
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by genedangelo 6y ago
My current title is Director of Analytics Innovation. But I am an individual contributor - I don't have anyone reporting to me.
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by genedangelo 6y ago
That's a lot of questions, but let me take a couple. I got my Master's degrees in the early 1970's, when we used something called a "slide rule". In 1990 I went back to school to update my skills and expand my kno
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by 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
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by genedangelo 6y ago
I think someday we will be able to duplicate the basic brain of an infant in a computer. Don't forget all the information is in our DNA and there's not that much innate knowledge - most of the infant's brain relates to the a
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by 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
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by 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" - Kaney
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by 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
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by 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.
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by 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
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by 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 a
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by 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 t
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by genedangelo 6y ago
I definitely experienced age discrimination in one company that will go nameless. The small company I'm working for now has been great - I love the culture. However, they were just bought by Thomson Reuters and this Monday I will off
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by 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
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by 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 Equ
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by 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. o
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by 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.
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Ask HN: Am I the longest-serving programmer – 57 years and counting?
2634 points by genedangelo 6y ago|531 comments