Ask Slashdot: Becoming a Programmer At 40? 314
New submitter fjsalcedo writes "I've read many times, here at Slashdot and elsewhere, that programming, especially learning how to program professionally, is a matter for young people. That programmers after 35 or so begin to decline and even lose their jobs, or at least part of their wages. Well, my story is quite the contrary. I've never made it after undergraduate level in Computer Science because I had to begin working. I've always worked 24x4 in IT environments, but all that stopped abruptly one and a half years ago when I was diagnosed with a form of epilepsy and my neurologist forbade me from working shifts and, above all, nights. Fortunately enough, my company didn't fire me; instead they gave me the opportunity to learn and work as a web programmer. Since then, in less than a year, I've had to learn Java, JavaScript, JSTL, EL, JSP, regular expressions, Spring, Hibernate, SQL, etc. And, you know what? I did. I'm not an expert, of course, but I'm really interested in continuing to learn. Is my new-born career a dead end, or do I have a chance of becoming good at programming?"
Good for you! (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm happy for you and your new career. Get ready for a nonstop list of reasons why you're doomed, but don't listen to them. If you love what you're doing, do it. Make your own success. Ageism is as bad as racism, and just as illegal.
Re:Good for you! (Score:5, Insightful)
The submitter should be aware that career management in any IT role is essential in order to remain relevant. You have a decent employer by today's standards and with effort you have successfully moved into web development. If you are passionate about programming in the general sense and specifically web development including mobile application development, you stand a fair chance of riding this career transition into retirement. One thing you could do to improve the longer term prospects as a web developer is seek small outside contracts which can be worked outside regular business hours preferably from home. Above all you must actively manage your career rather than coasting along until the inevitable termination; it is rare anyone works 20 years for a private firm these days even if they love the organization...the organization won't always love you back. Best of fortune on the career as a web developer.
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This is true. I've found a lot of people who are really interested in "getting into coding/computers/whatever". I then offer to teach them what they need to know. That weeds out 90% of them when their eyes glaze over after I try and teach them 'vi'. The rest of them get weeded out when they realize that the fact that they are 40, and that I am almost 40 doesn't mean that they get my job without the intervening 15-20 years of experience I have since I left college. You're like that guy they kept holding
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This is true. I've found a lot of people who are really interested in "getting into coding/computers/whatever". I then offer to teach them what they need to know. That weeds out 90% of them when their eyes glaze over after I try and teach them 'vi'.
I've been programming for 30 years, and my eyes would glaze over, and I would think you were a masochistic evil person if you tried to teach me 'vi.' Why don't you teach them to pole their eye out with a sharp stick while they are at it? Do you also had them a stack of punch cards too?
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There are people that think an introduction to software development should have vi, makefiles, pointers, and red-black trees in the first week. I disagree, I think there's plenty of time to tackle each piece individually. Basic algebra is so easy to most educated people that it's laughable, but that doesn't mean we give our 10
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I agree with the previous poster, you are a moron!
Coding is bloody easy once you learn the fundamentals. Teaching them the concepts of sequencing, conditional branching, looping and procedural abstraction is far more important than introducing them to some obscure nix based text editor. They will be very unlikely to ever need to use vi in their lifetime.
All you are trying to do is show them something so foreign and unintuitive that has nothing to do with programming that it pumps up your nerd ego to show th
Re:Good for you! (Score:5, Interesting)
One of the best programmers I've ever worked with started as an accountant and became a programmer in his 40s first with ASP and then with PHP. What he lacked in advanced knowledge he made in spades up by being careful and methodical. He never tried to show off and when he designed something it was generally right the first time and out of the 20 programmers in our office he had by far the lowest bug count.
Re:Good for you! (Score:5, Funny)
One of the best programmers I've ever worked with started as an accountant and became a programmer in his 40s first with ASP and then with PHP. What he lacked in advanced knowledge he made in spades up by being careful and methodical. He never tried to show off and when he designed something it was generally right the first time and out of the 20 programmers in our office he had by far the lowest bug count.
Yeah, but who was counting the bugs? Thats right, the accountant!
Re:Good for you! (Score:5, Interesting)
The one thing though that I have over them is experience, caution, and patience. I have the ability to do something right the first time even though it takes me longer. They are faster but it takes them more tries to get it right and many times my one try is much faster than their 10 tries. You've got to use what you have to your advantage. If my boss needs something done quick-and-dirty style he asks one of the younger people. If it needs to be perfect he asks me. We all have a place here and by combining all of our strengths together as a team we kick some serious ass.
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Re:Good for you! (Score:4, Insightful)
Presumably, since his bug count was compared to other peoples' bug counts in their shared work place, the architecture and complexity were comparable, if not exactly the same. I concede that it is possible he was given a module to work on which might have lent itself to fewer bugs, but he also could have been given a more complex one. We just don't know.
Whatever the details were, he did show that a former accountant could excel in a new job because of the disciplined work methodology he honed in his years of carefully adding numbers and apply tax rules. This could give some qualified encouragement to older workers who are newly joining development teams.
Re:Good for you! (Score:5, Insightful)
Remember that the first programmers weren't kids. It wasn't a case of 40 year old engineers who created a computer and then said "too bad none of us know how to program it".
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Re:Good for you! (Score:5, Funny)
Age-related cognitive decline is a reality.
So it's true that teenagers really do know everything?
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Age-related cognitive decline is a reality. ...The facts of the situation do drive employers to ageism
It is not the fact of age-related cognitive decline which leads to ageism in the corporate world. Not even close.
Re:Good for you! (Score:4, Insightful)
When your 40 and thinking about a new career track, you have already fallen off the latter and in the HR Imbeciles mind are fatally damage goods.
Or, they use things like the number of spelling and grammar mistakes in the resumes to help screen, and yours never seem to pass that mark.
Slashdot should be renamed (Score:5, Funny)
to ageism.stackoverflow.com.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
To expand on the above:
Can Older Software Developers Still Learn New Tricks? [slashdot.org] Posted by samzenpus on Monday April 29, 2013
Ask Slashdot: Programming / IT Jobs For Older, Retrained Workers? [slashdot.org] Posted by timothy on Tuesday February 05, 2013
It's Hard For Techies Over 40 To Stay Relevant, Says SAP Lab Director [slashdot.org] Posted by timothy on Sunday November 18, 2012
What's the Shelf Life of a Programmer? [slashdot.org] Posted by samzenpus on Monday November 05, 2012
Why Coding At Fifty May Be Nifty [slashdot.org] Posted by timothy on Sunday November 04, 2012
That's sorta up to you; (Score:5, Insightful)
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There is a paper about learning programming languages and why it is so hard to teach.
They found that you cannot really teach programming, and you cannot predict based on education or IQ if someone is able to program.
They have given people who have never done programming in their life before a test on how simple programs (sequential variable assignments) change the variables. The persons fell into two groups, people who are able to keep a consistent (not necessarily correct) memory model in their head and pe
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I'm calling BS on this, sorry! I learnt my second language at over 21. I'm learning a third one right now. I have no problem with languages. Accents you work on if you have the time.
I learnt progamming at over 30. The PC came on the market when I was over 30... I'm still learning. It depends on the individual. Some people can, others can't.
If I had stuck with what Iearned before 14 I would be a sheep farmer. That was all there was in my neck of the woods.
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The language learning part is complete nonsense. ... regardless how fluent you are in latin based languages, after a break of 20 years in language learning you will have trouble with russian, german, mandarin or a random african language.
Especially the accent part.
And also the easy part
I hope you dont program in JavaScript like in Perl btw ... your list of languages and calling them similar makes no sense to me either. Especially the LOGIC behind them is absolutely different ...
good for you (Score:5, Insightful)
Go for it. If you're willing to learn new things, then age should be no obstacle. Indeed, I suggest that even older people (in their 70s and 80s) learn programming, as by exercising the brain, you may prevent certain brain problems (like dementia).
You might not be able to work as many hours as young folk, but if you're willing to work, and to continually learn new tricks and ways of doing things, then I can't see it as a problem.
Anyone who says that you are too old is at best an idiot, but maybe someone who just wants to take your job. Don't let them, prove the bastards wrong.
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It really helps if you have domain experience to bring to the table. Someone who new to programming but has 20 years experience doing X really brings a lot to the table for a job developing software that does X.
It's also worth noting that at larger companies, the cost of almost every new hire is the same: 1 req. As long as you don't expect to come in at a paygrade where you must be a leader, it shouldn't be an issue.
I agree (Score:3, Interesting)
Go for it. The only one that should be telling you what you can or can't do is yourself.
If you have a passion for something you will enjoy it and may become very good at it.
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It's no different than being young and being a programmer. If you are passionate about it, and continue learning, you'll master it. If you are doing it for a paycheck, then you'll quickly fall behind and become a useless relic that can't do anything in tomorrow's world. It really is that simple.
Go for it (Score:5, Informative)
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Often it's about interview techniques, not so much skills. If you don't know how to interview fairly well, such as being very nervous, then during recessions or downturns you may be out in the rain. That's the ugly reality. But then again, almost any career is like that.
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And speaking as a hiring manager, draw on how your IT experience will allow you to develop solutions that will work seamlessly with the whole IT ecosystem at your organization.
I know I've seen over the years many situations where a development team will say "OK the code is ready!". When I ask them what firewall rules they will require, they just look at me blankly and turn towards IT, because that's "infrastructure stuff".
Typically we have a name for Development staff who doesn't do that... Senior develope
You answered your own question (Score:5, Insightful)
Since then, in les than a year, I've had to learn Java, Javascript, JSTL, EL, JSP, regular expressions, Spring, Hibernate, SQL, etc. And, you know what? I did. I'm not an expert, of course, but I'm really interested in continuing to learn.
Go forth and prosper. Programming is not like professional sports or the ballet, where there are only a few hundred jobs nationwide to go around.
Re:You answered your own question (Score:5, Funny)
Go forth and prosper.
I'm not an expert, but shouldn't it be .
Forth go prosper and
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Nah.
Forth.go().prosper();
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If it's reverse polish notation, punctuation is redundant:
Go forth prosper and
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The "." is to print out the result.
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assert( do dup not or )
forget try
What is a dead end? (Score:4, Informative)
It sounds like you never aspired to striking it rich, nor becoming senior management. It sounds like you want a secure job that will last you until you retire.
IMHO, this transition forces you to find a family-owned business or a private company who doesn't focus solely on the bottom line. It does limit your options, but who cares? It sounds like you don't want 100x options, but you want a stable job until retirement.
In that case, go ahead! Keep learning, keep your skills up to date, and you will do great! Just don't expect a high wage, or to get paid like you are an industry veteran. You pay will be comparable to an entry-level programmer (or a bit better). Don't beg for promotions, stay low-cost, and you will do fine.
No. (Score:5, Insightful)
Even someone that is 70 can learn a new programming language and thrive. The only advantage the youngsters have is the ability to adsorb the information faster, they cant learn more, they cant do more.
Problem is you as an older person will not happily take abuse from management, thus you are less desirable than a young fresh out of college kid that will take epic levels of abuse and not complain.
You Need Fogietran: (Score:2)
10 PRINT "Get"
20 PRINT "Off"
30 PRINT "My"
40 PRINT "Lawn!"
50 GOTO HOSPITAL
If you done well, so far... (Score:2)
fjsalcedo,
Kudos to you and your company. Keep learning and exploring programming languages and techniques. But above all else, IGNORE what people on Slashdot tell you. Especially, since you are proving their dumb *sses wrong.
Started as a new Programmer at 42 (Score:3)
To both question: Yes. (Score:5, Insightful)
Is my new-born career a dead end?
Yes. But your old career was a dead end. All our careers are dead ends. Life is a dead end. We all have to deal with it. You can give up, or enjoy what you have while you have it.
Do I have a chance of becoming good at programming?
Without knowing more about you, I'd say a slight chance. But I'd say the same for a fresh graduate from some top engineering school. Good programmers are a rare find. The best we can hope for is your maturity and experience leads you to spend more time considering edge cases and maintainability and less time trying to impress people with cleverness and flash.
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No, I'm going into cryogenic preservation.
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Good for you. Your organs* will live on in future rich people.
* Brain not included.
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Is my new-born career a dead end?
Yes. But your old career was a dead end. All our careers are dead ends. Life is a dead end. We all have to deal with it. You can give up, or enjoy what you have while you have it.
Truly inspiring words.
you are a decent employee (Score:3, Insightful)
Your company sees you as worth investing some time/training in. That speaks well of you and of the company. If you didn't at least have some level of competency they would not have been interested in training you, but (and I'm totally guessing here) you apparently show up to work and make a contribution.
So yes, be a programmer! If you're really cool we'll make you a brogrammer.
Yes. You can, but.. (Score:2)
I see no reason why you can't become a good programmer. I work in IT and I see many people over forty having to learn new skills, because they are familiar with the operational systems and have too little on their plate (that is what bosses always think..).
Then again, you are becoming a grunt. You are pushed down from your career path, doing things that twenty-somethings do when they are just hired.
My advice to you: become really good in something. Pick one programming language you like, and start to design
You're fine if you don't want to leave (Score:5, Insightful)
Most of the ageism seems to come with the hiring company. If you're at a company that's already supporting you, and it appears they are, then you're not going to have problems as long as you stay. Obstacles may only start to crop up if/when you want to move. Even then I think the horror stories are exaggerated - we've got programmers in their 40's or 50's here who were relatively new hires, but we're a smaller and perhaps nontraditional company. I think you ought to still have plenty of options, but you may struggle if you try to pick certain large and established firms with a reputation for ageism, including most of the gaming industry.
Best of luck to you! I'm actually still pushing back my plans to reinvent myself as a programmer (trying to get through kids before changing career paths) and I know I won't get to it before I'm 40. Despite the general negativity about my prospects, I don't expect that to stop me from eventually making the transition.
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Ageism is everywhere.
At a previous job I was perceived by our director as a youngster that's a Linux expert.
One day, the director wanted to illustrate to me how hard it was to handle older people and find new assignments for them due to the changes in technology.
The example he chose was:"Well, you know, it's not like it's going to be easy to take X and Y and have them learn Linux".
At that point I had known X and Y for about 9 years and they had been configuring the Linux boxes that shipped in a touchscreen
Full Steam Forward (Score:5, Interesting)
Read good code, talk to good developers (Score:3)
More tactically, my advice is to read good code and talk to good developers. You can gain a lot of wisdom by just having the guts to ask, expect some odd looks given you're older but all good developers appreciate good code and will help you produce good code. If anyone gives you sh*t about your age write them off as a waste of space and go talk to someone else.
Greybeards (Score:3)
I hire programmers, and frankly at this point I am more inclined to hire an older programmer than a younger. The issue is about focus and discipline. Of course there are lots of young people who have learned how to focus on something for more than 30 seconds at a time, and I'm sure there are also some that have the self discipline to organize their life in ways that make them the most productive. But wisdom comes with age and for my particular management style someone who is self propelled and who has these qualities is desirable.
I think your only issue is going to be one of experience as you go forward with other job prospects. You'll just need to stand on what you have learned as someone who takes their career seriously, and is paying attention.
Look at your local community colleges (Score:2)
A lot of tech schools and community colleges offer 2-year computer programming associates degrees (and many other certificate programs). And they're usually pretty cheap and offer night classes too. I suggest you check those out.
And, no, never too old to change careers. I've done so several times and always ended up smoking my younger competition.
No problems (Score:2)
In my experience as a programmer, what sets apart acceptable developers from great ones is the ability to teach themselves new languages, frameworks, libraries, and techniques. They're self-driven, and it shows. They don't 'learn faster' - they just learn more often. You take a person like that, and in a few months they can demonstrate value several times greater than a programmer with a decade of experience.
It seems like you've already shown that sort of initiative, so I'd say you're already well on you
Two answers (Score:2)
No, programming ability does not decrease with age. I am approaching 60, writing the best code ever, and getting paid well to do it
Yes, there is extreme age discrimination in hiring. Most companies want young people, right out of college. They don't have health problems or families, and work long hours for low pay
Don't listen to the naysayers (Score:2)
My only specific advice to a late bloomer would be: don't sweat the "new" technology and acronym soup that changes every few years. Everything substantial was already done in the late 60's at Xerox Parc, or CERN and the NCSA in the late 80's, but comes out repackaged with new acronyms every time an architecture is refactored to fit the newest hardware capabilities. Focus on what you do well and ignore the rest. If anything, it's much easier to survive as a new programmer nowadays because the coding tools
You will be fine. (Score:2)
Programming isn't a dead end. You can move into management, or if you're happy programming you can still program. If you can't find a job, you can freelance. It's not the type of skill that you need a lot of fancy equipment for (i.e.- you aren't flying planes).
, or do I have a cha
Please take this as a compliment... (Score:2)
Your epilepsy is a 1% neurological condition (99% of people don't have it)
Your ability to learn and apply new (to you) concepts after age 40 is similarly rare.
The old saw about "anyone can learn anything if they just apply themselves" is not true for some people, and as people age it becomes not true for more and more of them.
Build your programming career on your other skills (Score:3)
Being a good programmer is a matter of being a good fit for the role you're performing. If you have expertise in other areas and can use programming to apply that knowledge in a way that the computer can do the work that people do now, you'll never run out of automation work. Look around you at things people do by passing around spreadsheets or pieces of paper. Can you write tools to make that data flow easier?
I'm don't like telemarketing, spam, junk mail, etc. However, several years ago I got a job where I helped develop a team to implement a data warehouse for direct mail marketing. Knowing some of the traits of these scum up front helped me understand the business needs of the marketing people. I also learned a few things on how to get suppressed from such marketing as well as ways to poison data collected for such a purpose. The people I was working for saw the business value in not marketing to people who don't want the product - a viewpoint I could completely agree with. Just because you don't like something, doesn't mean you can't help someone do that thing in a more responsible and less annoying manner.
When I interview programmers, how they analyze and solve problems is far more likely to get them hired than what tools they have experience in. If they can solve a problem in their favorite language easily, I don't mind if they don't have as much experience as I'd like in the language we're using for a particular project.
Don't believe all the sour grapes (Score:5, Informative)
There are lots of programmers working and making very good livings well after age 35. I'm 43 and just two years ago was hired by Google, with a significant pay increase. I work with lots of other guys who are in their 40s, 50s and even 60s and they're bright, very capable and -- obviously -- highly experienced.
Of course I'm talking about people who started when they were younger, but I see no reason why it shouldn't be possible to pick it up later in life.
If you enjoy it, and are successfully making a living at it, go for it. Ignore the naysayers.
Agism is more about not paying proper salaries (Score:2)
Agism in the IT industry has a lot more to do with companies not wanting to pay for experience than it does with any genuine lack of skills on the part of the older population. I know many people who transformed their careers from "low level" tech roles to full scale programmers.
One of the best programmers/Oracle admins I know didn't start working with computers until he was 43, and was then given the opportunity to learn on the job -- and learn he did! Keith knows more about Oracle and it's guts than
you can, but you're at a disadvantage (Score:2)
Screw the haters, I'd probably hire you. (Score:2)
/thread
(I am a web developer with over ten years of professional experience. Your attitude is great and it sounds like you're learning fast. Don't listen to the know-it-alls who think they're hot shit. They're not, they're just loud.)
Programming at 36... awesome! (Score:2)
I am 36 and love what I do. I'm a little different though as I got my first job programming when I was 16, so I've been doing Software Development for 20+ years. I've programmed in so many languages that it's almost a blur now. I've had jobs writing x86 ASM, Pascal, C/C++, Java, Python, and more. I've been a CTO, but, I loved the coding too much so I'm happy as a Software Architect for a major internet company. Who says you can't code at 36 or 40?
I don't think it really matters when you start, it's h
Keep a positive attitude, be a team player (Score:2)
Seriously. In an interview with older guys, the people doing the interviewing want to know:
You won't be constantly challenging their authority.
You will be open to new ways of doing things.
You want to learn.
You can learn (show evidence).
You can take orders and carry them out and execute well.
Won't be cynical and infect others with cynicism.
You can integrate well with the team (you're not a douche).
Don't badmouth previous employers. Don't come off like
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BTW, I'm being specifically sexist here. Virtually all of the woman software engineers I've been privileged to w
40 is too old. (Score:2)
Good luck with your career change. Contrary to what you might have heard, programming is not just for young people. There are qualities you gain with age. While you might not want to go up racing against kids for who can stay up longer coding, you've solved many more problems in life than they have. A large part of programming is problem solving. So you have an edge there.
There are many other things that get better with age, but I'm not going to change the subject.
My father as an example. (Score:3)
I'm not saying it's easy-peasy, but if you have skills and desire, you're likely to do well. Best wishes!
Join the ACM (Score:2)
It's also worth seeing if a local ACM chapter is near you. You can connect at one of their
It's not too late (Score:2)
I became an accidental programmer around then (Score:2)
True, I'd been scripting automated testing systems in C++ for 3 years prior to that, but at 40, was forced to learn vb.net and vbscript. Vbscript begat powershell. Vb.net begat C#. And these days, at 55, I just work through whatever syntactic abomination is thrown my way, no matter how fundamentally unnecessary and pointless (I'm lookin' at you, WPF).
"Over 35 it's over" is just FUD. (Score:2)
That programmers after 35 or so begin to decline and even lose their jobs, or at least part of their wages
This is FUD spread by people who are covering because they are not (and probably never were) very good at their jobs... or by people who are young and can't really say for sure... or who knows who else. I personally know several guys in their 40s/50s who have been making better strides then myself (20s/30s) ... it comes down to experience, personality and capability.
Employees and careers are not square
Your not in the worst situation to be in (Score:2)
You're not in the worst situation you could be in.
Our industry and the career options of our field change so fast, you have to learn new stuff each year, no matter how old you are. If your company keeps you around and basically pays you a salary for you to learn programming, what's you problem? Obviously they trust you and your valuable enough as a progger to them.
Most productive code is of low to mediocre quality anyway and no one cares, as long as it's finished before the deadline, so don't sweat it.
Good
An analogy ... (Score:2)
I know plenty of people that start martial arts with 35, 40 or 50 or much older.
With 3 - 4 trainings a week they make their first black belt after 4 - 5 years, sometimes faster, sometimes a bit slower.
The second black belt they make 3 to 4 years later. If they do continue and don't stop they make the fourth after 20 years of practice. In case of the 40 year old, that is obviously about the age of 60.
If you start martial arts with 60 you perhpas have no 20 years left of fitness ...
How does that relate to pro
older programmers.... (Score:2)
Re:it's at a dead end (Score:5, Funny)
With the worst first comment ever.
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Re:it's at a dead end (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, the guy should totally judge his employability by a theoretical programming robot that doesn't currently exist.
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You don't have a clue...
The difference between the 20 yr and 40 yr old programmer is that the former will push untested code into production and all that entails.
We get these discussions semi-weekly it seems that you at least have been unable to comprehend that it takes a mix of experience to make a coding team.
The hardware engineers can gloat when they learn or hire someone to write their user manuals :)
Re:it's at a dead end (Score:5, Insightful)
The difference between a 20 year old coder and a 40 year old coder is usually 20 years of coding experience. That usually entails not doing silly things like pushing untested junk to production. Instead, it is pushing well-tested junk to production.
However, if this guy is just starting at 40, he may have more things in common with the 20 year old than the other 40 year old coders.
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The legit question is: will I be able to continue to learn faster than a programming robot will advance and eventually replace me? The truth is that the programming robot will learn at an exponential rate, so there will likely be little difference between having 2 years of experience or 20 by the time the robot surpasses your ability. Perhaps the 20-year-programmer will have an extra day or two to try and hack into the robot, and likely that extra experience will help with that goal. But all programmers will eventually be replaced by the robot. Then, at long last, the hardware engineers can again gloat.
Management has been trying to get hold of those hypothetical programming robots for decades, and they never manage to do so. That's why they have to settle for things like under-30s and Third World code monkeys.
Someday, someone probably will manage to make computer systems that can program themselves intelligently. But a lot of predecessor functions need to be automatable first, and so far, little luck on those either. I'm fairly confident that anyone 40 or over isn't in any danger.
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Then, at long last, the hardware engineers can again gloat.
No. Because the programming robot will deliberately leave the gloat() function as an empty stub in the hardware design robot's firmware.
Re:it's at a dead end (Score:4, Interesting)
They have been saying this since the 60s, yet people still seem to be writing code. What seems to happen is, byt the time a computer catches up with a major development pattern, developers are already off to the next pattern of development.
I mean, an operating system basically does what we would have called programming 40 years ago, writing instructions to the processor, calculations, etc. The nature of programming has changed since then, as it will over the next 40 years. I could see there being an application that models relevant data, builds interfaces, and maybe even makes them look nice. But I doubt that will be the way we interact with computers by the time they can do it.
http://www.amazon.com/What-Computers-Still-Cant-Artificial/dp/0262540673 [amazon.com]
This book is one of the first, best discussions about the major challenges that AIs face. The articles about ambiguity tolerance really tell you all you need to know to understand this point. While AIs are pretty awesome at this point, they really do rely on clustering algorithms and normative pattern analysis to construct the facts they operate on. It's useful as a means of understanding the world, but it's not really the same as what most people would call 'judgement' and it's certainly not the way people work in the world.
I have a theory about why AI will never replace coders. Once a machine gets to the point where it can handle the tasks of a coder, it becomes commonplace. People strive for more, technology is necessarily an innovation market. Eventually something new comes along, it takes decades to come to grips with it. During that time, people are the ones working out what's useful and interesting.
In other words, it's all a cycle, and machines are constantly catching up by automating what we did before. They never lead, which is why we have coders.
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Re:it's at a dead end (Score:5, Insightful)
Like there was any fundamental difference between hardware and software engineering.
Indeed. I do both hardware and software.
When I do software, I sit at my computer and type C.
When I do hardware, I sit at my computer and type verilog.
The main difference is that C code is executed in sequence, but with verilog it is all executed at the same time.
I expect to be replaced by a robot sometime around 2030.
Re:it's at a dead end (Score:4, Funny)
I expect to be replaced by a robot sometime around 2030.
10:30PM tonight: [knock knock] Are you Sarah Conner?
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No.
The ads used to say "'system administrator", "desktop support", "server", "application", etc.
And then the nice to have skills: "html", "java", "CMS", "web".
Why did I not get hired? Even though I can wrangle a CMS, and figure out a lot of stuff hosed up on a site, I cannot re-write the offending jsp and get things running again unless it is a glaring syntax error. So though I know my way around the Microsoft office systems environment, can bring servers up reliably, and keep the joint running, what the
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depends on the angle
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Re:Go for it (Score:5, Interesting)
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The ones that fail would've failed in any industry that has a technology refresh every so often: science, medical, even manufacturing in some cases.
I did want to nail home one point here though: The mutual consensuses is that C# is a LOT easier to write in than Cobol, a ton of stuff is already created for you by MS, it's stomaching the technology overhead that typically proves to be the most challenging.
Re:Go for it (Score:5, Insightful)
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No, there is more to the "bad old programmer", than uwillingness to work long hours, often for free.
As people age, many become "set in their ways". And, in an industry, where half of what you know becomes useless every three years (I used to claim five years), getting "set in one's ways" is suicide. I once encountered a Cobol programmer who was writting business applications for IBM PCs in the language because he didn't want to learn anything new. Well, Cobol on PCs always was kind of creaky. He didn't last
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Also as you get older you get a bit jaded, not quite so excited with this years super-duper new programming language or API.
That's probably because if you've been programming for four decades, you've already seen 95% of the stuff that's presented as "new" *decades* ago.
Re: Doubt (Score:2)
That's interesting. Someone who doubts his own abilities raises your doubts about his abilities. I'd have to say I have the opposite reaction. People who are overly confident in their own abilities always raise my suspicions that they may be incapable of introspection and self-correction.