Slashdot Mirror
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
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.
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.