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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.'"
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. Yoga doesn't help either.
It also pains me intellectually and emotionally - it's boring. Its' just a tool to solve some other problem I have. 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.
Typing code isn't that far away from the days of moving jumper wires around to program the computer. Programmers stopped that in the 1950s and here we are still typing?!? If programming technology moved as fast as hardware tech, we'd be programming with brain waves or something. Coding is just so - backwards.
Typing! Give me fucking break!
You posted AC because you know damned well that the roles are actually reversed from your post. On both counts.
Really? Just try earning a little extra money for your family by getting a second job, a part time service job because you are lucky to have one good job in the first place in this economy and more menial work that youre not too proud to do is all you can get for a second one. See who asks you where something is when they're standing right in front of it. Hint: they're all over 50. See who just can't fathom that the big sign visible from anywhere in the store saying SPORTING GOODS is where one might find fishing gear, hint, they're all over 50. Somehow the under-50 crowd makes the connection on their own. I could give countless examples.
Now I am happy to help out and all of that but demand for my services is much, MUCH higher among the over-50 crowd. The same people who claim they should get special respect because of their accumulated wisdom and life experience, yet they seem confounded over the most basic things that no one else has trouble with.
Now really I don't think they are stupid. I think they feel entitled to be served. That is why they are so rude and impatient and unappreciative of the help they do get. I think they get their jollies from demeaning and degrading anyone expected to be subservient to them, makes them feel important, especially the ones who have a little money. Maybe it's because this is an area where older people like to move to, to retire, and they have some money enough to be upper middle class and think that makes them the Kennedies or something. But when I personally interact with the Baby Boomers and I see what they are really like, in a way that their boss does not, it makes perfect sense to me that these are people who would leave their children and grandchildren with a bankrupt nation.
As the saying goes, you want to see what a man is really like, don't look at how he talks to his boss. Look at how he treats the waitstaff. That will reveal his true character. Honestly before I swallowed my pride and took a second menial job to provide for my family, and had to serve these old people, before then I never thought any less of them. Now I know, in a way that you don't if you have never done the same. All you see of them is sweet old Grandma baking cookies or something, well let me tell you that is not the whole story.