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Why Coding At Fifty May Be Nifty
theodp writes "Enough with the dadgum naysayers. Google's Vivek Haldar lists some good reasons for why you would want to program at fifty (or any other age). Haldar's list would probably get a thumbs-up from billionaire SAS CEO Jim Goodnight, who had this to say about coding when interviewed at age 56: 'I would be happy if I just stayed in my office and programmed all day, to tell you the truth. That is my one real love in life is programming. Programming is sort of like getting to work a puzzle all day long. I actually enjoy it. It's a lot of fun. It's not even work to me. It's just enjoyable. You get to shut out all your other thoughts and just concentrate on this little thing you're trying to do, to make work it. It's nice, very enjoyable.'"
... and still coding
And so if you keep programming, you keep learning and stave off brain rot.
Do it yourself, because no one else will do it yourself. [beta blockade 10-17 Feb]
If coding is like typing for you, you've never done any real programming. Coding is about thinking out elegant solutions to interesting problems. I don't think that's boring at all.
assignment != equality != identity
What a stupid fucking premise.
As for me at 48, sitting in front of the computer all day just pains me - literally. No matter how often I take breaks, I have a lot of tension that runs down from my neck to my ass.
That's exactly how I felt at age 19 as I was stacking 80 pound salt bags on pallets for roughly $5/hr. About a week after I got my first "real" desk job, the most surprising observation I had, other than the obvious "now I take a shower before work rather than after work" was that I wasn't in some level of constant pain. Getting old is no fun but it beats the alternative, and I'm not thinking there's anything that can help once you get old enough, by that I mean that stacking 80 pound salt bags would probably just kill me at my current age, not make my back feel better. I had back problems a couple years back until I (re-)started serious (as in, need a shower afterwards) weightlifting during lunch hour, the key being if your physical therapist says do X Y and Z do exactly X Y Z no improvising or excuses.
I can't wait for the day when I can tell the computer verbally or draw a picture the algorithm and never ever have to type another line of code - ever.
The bandwidth for that is almost infinitely low compared to typing. You'd basically have to invent your own glyphs and language, or spend hours drawing thousands of pictures. You may want to look into the CAD drafting profession, where you get to spend hours drawing the equivalent of a couple lines of text. Another fun one is wedding photography.
Also try a less verbose language. I've seen 1000+ line java programs replaced by about 5 lines of Perl/CPAN... two use statements, two cpan calls, and an immense line noise appearing regex between them. Unsurprisingly, neither extreme is healthy.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
It also pains me intellectually and emotionally - it's boring.
I'm the same age as you, and it sounds to me like you're working on things that don't interest you. I like coding, as long as what I'm writing is solving an interesting problem.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
I hope I'm still solving little puzzles like that when I'm 50 but I also solved those when I was 25. There's nothing wrong with that, but if that's all you do then you're probably going to be at the same point career and pay grade-wise at 50 as at 25. If you've become the CEO of SAS, that's probably because you're solving a lot of other issues that you couldn't solve as a 25 year old. If you have experience, you have to find positions where that gives you leverage and not all of them are like that. It doesn't matter if you've been flipping burgers for 30 years and perfected your burger flipping technique, you're still very replaceable by a newbie. If you want to be a coder specialist, make sure it's a specialist job and not just writing your average glue code. It's easy enough for the CEO to say that, he can pick whatever problem he finds complex and interesting to do as a hobby, the actual employees don't have that luxury. Unless you're talking about working on an OSS or pet project outside of work.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I wouldn't say coding is hard. However, it does require a certain level of mental discipline and the ability to organise one's thoughts. The problem with older coders is that they tend to just get the job done. Quietly, without fuss or drama. (At least, I do) Whereas the young 'uns make a big deal about working late, pulling all-nighters ('cos they're on FB all day) and turning a project into a crisis. That means they get all the attention and the spotlight, which makes them look like superheros when they squeak in with a clean compile just milliseconds before the delivery deadline.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
The flip side of that is, who'll hire a 50-year old coder, or even keep him or her on the damn payroll? Even at reduced wages it's a crap shoot.
OK, granted, I misread you on purpose, go for the easy mod points.
Still, do you really think talking to your computer, or drawing pictures for it, is going to make programming easier or more fun or less work? I very strongly doubt that. When programming becomes repetitive, you should find some way to automate that part; code it differently, develop a tool or invent a new language. And ultimately, it would be great if some AI would just write programs for our problems. Before that, there will be some typing. But not too much if you do it right.
assignment != equality != identity
tech support! I used to dream of tech support interruptions!
Now I'm doing a bastard child of agile that the company has brought in and I cannot do anything for longer than 2 hours without having to go back to the scrum board for more work. Don't they know they can just point me at a problem and I'll get it solved - it is what I've been doing for several decades after all.
I guess the agile stuff is for the kids who can't concentrate on a task for longer than an hour and have to keep being told what to do or they'll just start looking at facebook and twitter all day.
This is modded -1? Why? The poster is saying that we shouldn't be surprised that people who like coding want to continue coding regardless of age but that ageist stereotypes (wrongly) insist that all coders should be scabby teens.
I just turned 55, and have been writing software my whole career. I still enjoy it, but it's been a long time since I had that feeling like there was blue fire coming out of my fingers as I write. I find it has become pleasantly mundane. Beats the heck out of working for a living, though.
Why is there no +1 respect ?
-- The Internet is a too slow way of doing things, you'd never do without it.