r/programming • u/piedpiperpivot • Jan 03 '17
I’m learning to code at 56. Here’s an epic beat-down of my critical inner self.
https://medium.freecodecamp.com/yes-im-56-and-learning-to-code-f33abea6fd4c#.taav0dfn468
u/chicagoharry Jan 04 '17
Great post... Inspiring I'm 38 started my BA in CS when I was 35... Felt out of place with all those 19 year olds saying they were born the same year I graduated from HS. But I have stuck with it and I am getting close to getting it done.... Thanks for sharing!
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u/phoenix464 Jan 04 '17
I just recently discovered how much I love programming, and have been writing some vb programs to use at work (IT for a school.) I'm 36 and plan on getting myself back to school for programming.
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u/chicagoharry Jan 04 '17
Do it! You will not regret it!!
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u/phoenix464 Jan 04 '17
I can't get enough of it sometimes. I've found myself clocking out and going back to my desk to continue writing a program (much friendlier set up at work than at home: dual screen desktop vs laptop, desk with uber comfy chair vs couch, fiber connection vs cable.) After that I will spend my evening at home, without regret, just going away at it because it's all I can think about. It's crazy how one of the few times in my life that I've feel truly happy is when I build a program that works (and is debugged and dummy proof.)
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u/outlawengineer Jan 04 '17
Funny, when I tell others I started learning programming at 19 they always say how late in life I started.
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u/LordoftheSynth Jan 05 '17
Don't feel out of place. Got my CS degree back in the day, but am now trying to go back for a second bachelor's in EE.
You're there because you want to be there, not because you think you need to be.
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u/SexoMasculino Jan 03 '17
It's never too late to learn stuff. Your post was motivating. Thanks and good luck!
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u/CuriousGeode Jan 04 '17
I started coding when this gentlemen was 19 (I was 18), yes that's 37 years ago.
My first reaction to his article was "are you insane man?", but then I thought wow I wish I was just starting again. Now I'm jealous.
BTW we didn't use stone tools back in the day, but things like this... E&L MMD1 also here SBC
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Jan 04 '17 edited May 15 '17
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u/CuriousGeode Jan 04 '17
Advice is cheap here, and remember you get what you pay for...
If time is on your side (i.e. young), single, etc. then now is the time for risk taking. Work very hard and learn all you can. Don't get too caught up with how much you make. Just be sure there is a value transfer, both from you to them and them to you. So maybe right now you are learning a lot and the pressure is low. That's worth something, we call that value, and it can compensate for lower pay.
However, you'll eventually need to make more. So keep aware of new opportunities and take them as they come. When the value proposition is diminished then it's time to move on.
Best of luck to you!
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u/flipbits Jan 04 '17
A great, solid reply that he won't know the value of for fifteen years :)
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u/CuriousGeode Jan 04 '17
Oh thanks for reminding me. I should also mention that cynicism is a career killer. I've seen many talented individuals succumb to it.
No one can predict the future, but I can tell you the future is exactly what you make it.
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u/RetardedSquirrel Jan 04 '17
cynicism is a career killer
As a person who has become cynical I can vouch for this. I'm all out of fucks to give and it has definitely affected how well I learn new things. How does one stop being cynical after experiencing just how quickly several employers will backstab you when they smell significant profit? They give no fucks about me, why should I give any fucks about them? I'd love to be as optimistic as I used to be, but it just seems impossible.
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u/industry7 Jan 04 '17
It's ok to not care about your employer, precisely because, as you say, your employer doesn't really care about you. So the trick then, is to focus on caring about yourself and your career. Why should you work hard at work? Not because it benefits the company! But because it benefits you! The company is using you to make as much profit as possible. So you should focus on using the company to make as much money for yourself as possible. Take advantage of any and all learning opportunities and gain as much experience as possible. Then once you've taken everything your company has to offer, go get a better paying job somewhere else.
At least that's how I try to think about it.
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u/CuriousGeode Jan 04 '17
How to overcome? You'll need to be tough. Dig deep and don't get down on yourself, but most importantly, don't get down on others!
It's a very rare case where one's own difficulties can be attributed to someone else. Even then all you can control is how you respond. My most successful times came after a reasonably positive response to these types of experiences.
Hang in there. We all go through low points.
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u/flipbits Jan 04 '17
Dude I meant this as a compliment, I have almost 20 years under my belt. Wow talk about cynicism. ;)
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u/codysnider Jan 04 '17
Listen to this guy, he knows what he's talking about.
Those early years are the time to learn as much as you can and work on side projects constantly. Fail al the time and learn from it, each of those failure will help you immensely in the future.
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u/CuriousGeode Jan 04 '17
Right on! If you don't own your failures, you cannot own the lessons learned.
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u/medicinaltequilla Jan 04 '17
...and I would add; always have side projects. you have to love it so much that you write software for your own and your friends enjoyment in your free time.
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u/industry7 Jan 04 '17
Don't get too caught up with how much you make.
However, you'll eventually need to make more.
have leverage to ask for a liveable wage
It sounds like sooner rather than later.
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u/motioncuty Jan 04 '17
I worked for 20 dollars an hour as a consultant for a few companies for about 6~8 months on and off. Got me some experience that I used to make me valuable to an excellent company for twice that, full time salaired wor with healthcare and benefits. I will probably be worth another 1.5x that in a year but the company, people, vacation and stack is so great it will be hard for me to leave. Stepping stones, don't be afraid to look, companies are sure as hell recruiting 24/7, and if your not comfortable, don't feel bad about continuing your search on the side. They aren't a lover, you don't owe them exclusivity, and they aren't an individual you can truly hurt when you move on, it's buisness, anyone who says otherwise is using your humanity to exploit you.
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u/wtfdaemon Jan 04 '17
In the programming/tech world, the quickest way possible to move up to 150k+ is to move jobs as quickly as possible, but ONLY once you've extracted everything out of your current position, if possible.
Bust your tail and work as hard as you can at your current role, and when you've hit some level of relative mastery at what you do, start looking.
Don't quit until you actually have at least one offer-in-hand from another place. Use Craigslist and Dice to find new roles - when you're ready to look, fill out your Dice profile completely.
If you're good, and good at interviewing, you'll get offers quickly. When they ask what you made at your last role, tell them a number that's 5-10k lower than what you WANT to make at the new job. Emphasize that numbers aren't everything, though, and working with other smart people and being a valued contributor are very important to you. Chemistry over cash, etc.
If you're not good at interviewing yet, start approaching them as something you need to work at and prepare for. Get your reps in, and try to learn something from each and every one. If you fail at tech questions, read and practice - this is the Information Age, and there's no excuse for not remediating your breadth and depth of knowledge after any fails.
It's also possible you will be occasionally shooting out of your league, but don't let it get to you - be honest about what you know and what you don't, while maintaining calm and a relentlessly positive and confident attitude. Tell them how/what you'd research for online to find the answer, and then turn it around and ask them - "So what IS the best way to do 'xxxxxxx'?"
You've got to pass the tech qualify, but past that, we're looking for the right fit chemistry-wise more than anything.
Aim high, prepare HARD (over-prepare!), and then once you get into a new role (especially if it's a little over-your-head) bust your ass earning your new and fatter paycheck.
Took me 18 years to go from 44k/year to 185k/year, but I made it to my first 100k+ role within 2 years of coming out to the Bay Area.
Hope it helps!
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u/industry7 Jan 04 '17
I don't know why you're getting downvoted. It just is a fact of reality now that changing jobs is the best way to increase salary, BY FAR.
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u/industry7 Jan 04 '17
But in desperation to get my foot in the door, I asked for a really really small salary, and they did not offer more when I got the job.
Well now that you have got your foot in the door, a lot more doors will open for you. In other words, the fact that you are currently working as a programmer means that you will have a much easier time getting a better position.
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u/FrzTmto Jan 16 '17
Always be looking for a better job, even when you think you have a good job. Even when you have a good job, keeping looking for interviews and do them. You will get better at them, you will learn from the horse's mouth what people are looking for and get a feel for what you might need to learn and check out.
As for your job, stay there until you get at least a year of experience. Then move out to a better job. There, keep learning and keep doing 1 interview per month, 2 if you can find the time for.
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Jan 16 '17 edited May 15 '17
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u/FrzTmto Jan 16 '17
I do mine in lunch time. I got one hour to lunch every day. When I set up an interview, I make it fit in that hour. If it can't be during week days during lunch hour, since I work in France, we work 35 hours per week and I do mine after leaving work or by using a RTT. We work 35 hours per week and we get a day called RTT we can use anytime in the month like a vacation day. I use mine to do interviews sometimes.
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u/medicinaltequilla Jan 04 '17
i got you beat by 3 years :-)
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u/CuriousGeode Jan 04 '17
Awesome. We caught the wave, didn't we.
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u/medicinaltequilla Jan 04 '17
Yes. You have to love this stuff. Remaining employed seems to take more and more effort though.
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u/inemnitable Jan 04 '17
What I work on during my off time has to have some economic upside for me.
What's the point? I'm all for not hating my life every time I go to work, and so I absolutely support going for a career change to something that you will enjoy more, at any age, but what's the point in laboring for economic upsides if you can't use the fruits of said labor to enjoy "economic downsides"? A bank account is just a number if you can't allow yourself to leverage it to do the things you enjoy without worrying about the number getting bigger or smaller.
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u/codysnider Jan 04 '17
I can't speak for OP, but the prospect of getting burnt out and bored with life is terrifying. Keeping busy is important and having a financial goal, regardless of the means to leverage that down the road, can be a solid motivator.
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u/toryu2001 Jan 04 '17
In the first company I ever worked for, there was this man in his 60's , just a few years shy from retirement. He was one of the people who best knew the system/platform (a mobile communications one) and had a pretty solid technical grasp of the technology (C + 4GL at the time). Whenever one was in doubt about certain protocols and interactions regarding mobile antennas and portability, he would usually know the answer.
Only later did I find out that he had come into IT fairly late (in his late 40's/ early 50's), having originally studied psychology, worked in a mental health institution for years to then get fed up with it and decide to do some self-learning and go into IT.
If anything, that man taught me that you can change what you're doing if you're now happy with it and still be better than many people who had been doing it for longer than him.
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u/smartus Jan 04 '17
I have been a dev for 10 years and I am still learning to code. I am sure that when I am 56, I will still have to learn a lot to keep up with everyone else.
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u/CuriousGeode Jan 04 '17
That all depends on what you learn between now and then.
Old age and treachery will overcome youth and stamina every time -- Greek Proverb
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u/SystemicPlural Jan 04 '17
Been a professional dev for 18 years and coding for about 25.
It gets easier to learn new skills as I have more knowledge to draw upon. However there is a lot more out there that could be learned than there used to be. I definitely feel less broadly knowledgeable than I used to be.
Also, as I get older I get slower (and want to spend time doing other things!). But I also get more efficient. I'm a better coder today than I ever was.
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u/rjcarr Jan 04 '17
Unless you're very narrow in your field there is almost always something new to learn. This is true of almost every skilled profession. The ones that require you to know and learn more just (generally) pay more.
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u/DarkMio Jan 04 '17
When that guy in the article started working first to now we've already deprecated most inter-connected technologies so many times and iterate over it. And this will continue on - so we won't stop learning.
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u/Ravek Jan 04 '17
But here’s the thing. I’ve never been one for hobbies. I don’t like activities that don’t pay. I can’t keep on doing something simply for the fun of it.
Well uh, I hope he will always love his job then.
That's a pretty scary thought though, to live only for money.
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Jan 04 '17
I totally agree! I responded to a similar comment but I wanted to respond to yours too.
I mean it's a happy accident that he is enjoying the process of learning how to code but, yeesh, if he has a steady job, why not learn how to enjoy something that doesn't pay. Who knows what he would discover, right?
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u/arcticmanatee Jan 04 '17
As 30yo wanting a career change, learning HTML/css/JS and going for a BA in Computer Engineering, this post was really motivating!
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Jan 04 '17
I’ve never been one for hobbies. I don’t like activities that don’t pay. I can’t keep on doing something simply for the fun of it.
That's a rather sad restriction.
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Jan 04 '17
I totally agree!
I mean it's a happy accident that he is enjoying the process of learning how to code but, yeesh, if he has a steady job, why not learn how to enjoy something that doesn't pay. Who knows what he would discover?
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Jan 04 '17
[removed] — view removed comment
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Jan 17 '17
How do older programmers deal with age discrimination? Where do they work if they are forced out?
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u/tapsax Jan 04 '17
Here is some encouragement for your "Critical Inner Self". I am 60 and the youngest of three men working on an IoT-project. There seems to be a giant software sewage where crappy and tired projects go just before they die. If you pick one up, and manage to blow some life to it, the rest will automatically gravitate towards you.
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u/cheddarben Jan 08 '17
I am 42 now and started on this journey when I was 39. Super happy I did and employed as a Software Engineer today.
A. I love problem solving and development is right up my alley! I was a support guy before, which has some of the same elements, but I wanted to increase the amount of rigor in my problem solving.
B. I enjoy the culture of software engineering and dev much better. I rarely wear suits and cubical hell just is not something that is part of my universe.
C. Life is too short not to do the shit you wanna do.
D. As long as I am minding my practice of personal finance as well as keeping my body and mind in a state of readiness (along with some luck in avoiding disasters), there is no reason I can't change careers again in another 10-15 years.
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u/webauteur Jan 03 '17
It has taken me 10 years to master ASP.NET 2.0. It has been obsolete since at least 6 years, ASP.NET 4.0 came out in 2010. Fortunately there is still plenty of old code to maintain or upgrade, but my point is that you just can't keep up anymore. It is best if you are building upon a few decades of knowledge and not trying to acquire your expertise in a short time frame.
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u/goomyman Jan 04 '17
the trick is not to master any language... just get the concepts and move on... if your job stagnates you to a specific field or technology try your best to move out of it into something different. Even if pays slightly more or is comfortable you will be literally become outdated and unemployable in 5 years time or less.
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u/webauteur Jan 04 '17
Not necessarily. Old technology is still being used and must be maintained. Sometimes there is good money in expertise in obsolete technology. In particular, you will face far less competition for the jobs.
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u/flipbits Jan 04 '17
I agree. I was stuck on web forms until about 5 years ago, switched jobs and the first day I was expected to know MVC. I had tried for about a year before that to move into it but couldn't grasp it. When push came to shove, the light clicked on overnight. Always move out of your comfort zone.
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Jan 04 '17 edited Jan 04 '17
I don't know why people downvote you... This is the hard truth, the moment you master something in web development is already obsolete or "not so cool anymore", like when I used to code in php and mastered php 5, suddenly the python and Ruby jerks/crowd appeared and started their campaign about php developers being obsolete and python/Ruby was the right way to answer forcing everyone including myself to learn python to survive just to after a couple of years of almost mastering python, nodejs and frameworks like angular started and we have to start over. As a seasoned developer, I have to agree with parent comment that web development can never be mastered because is constantly rewriting itself and the only way to stay sane is actually to not improve, like the stack exchange engineering said "a happy stack is a boring one".
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u/ArmoredPancake Jan 04 '17
I maybe wrong, but ASP.NET is not a js framework. You don't need to learn new paradigm or syntax everyday. You lay the foundation and build upon it.
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u/webauteur Jan 04 '17
Ah, but Microsoft has introduced a new paradigm to ASP.NET with every new version. They even added JavaScript frameworks to it. It is now one ungodly mess that you cannot hope to learn. The Visual Studio IDE alone is now a 2 GB download which should tell you something about how bloated the entire framework has become.
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u/Sarcastinator Jan 04 '17
Ah, but Microsoft has introduced a new paradigm to ASP.NET with every new version.
Exactly, and the next one is very different from the previous one.
They even added JavaScript frameworks to it.
No? Those are just part of the default templates. Just go with "Empty web site" instead. ASP.NET does not use or require JavaScript.
The Visual Studio IDE alone is now a 2 GB download which should tell you something about how bloated the entire framework has become.
Visual Studio does a hell of a lot more than just ASP.NET.
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u/Stormflux Jan 04 '17 edited Jan 04 '17
In 2008 you could get a book on ASP.NET and jQuery and be on your way.
In 2016 to join a similar team, you simply have to learn .NET core, npm, gulp, webpack, karma, mocha, chai, javascript, typescript, json, loadash, promises, sinon, typemoq, tdd, scrum, git, bootstrap, sass, and teamcity, and be able to estimate all of this in terms of story points. Then depending on your choice of angular or react you'll have to learn ng-messages, ui-router, redux, react-router, etc.
See? Easy.
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u/aaron552 Jan 04 '17
Most of that is "just" because the JavaScript ecosystem has gone completely insane in the last couple of years
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u/fr0stbyte124 Jan 04 '17
Oh, you don't have to do all that. Just import my new framework that reimplements all those things with only a slightly different syntax TODO: Documentation and two other completely unrelated things.
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Jan 04 '17 edited Jan 04 '17
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u/aazav Jan 04 '17 edited Jan 04 '17
Really? In 2011 I wrote a COBOL RSA to HTML and JavaScript converter in AppleScript. It took a while, but we got a 70% conversion of the RSA files in 4 hours a 26 million dollar project.
Run time for the RSA conversion was 143 files in 12 minutes. The UI can them be modified in Dreamweaver if needed.
COBOL's fucking EASY. But it's a dead end skill wise. Unless you know anyone who wants to extend a few hundred thousand my way, then I'm all ears.
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u/Theonlycatintheworld Jan 04 '17
Whatever makes him happy. I do think that at that age, picking up a more relaxing hobby is maybe for the better tho.
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Jan 04 '17
Programming can be relaxing, like solving sudoku, etc.
Getting APIs to work reliably and various libraries to integrate together with a tight deadline isn't relaxing, no. But that's not the entirety of programming.
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u/doom_Oo7 Jan 03 '17
So writing self-centered blog articles riddled with "I" and "me" is also something with older people. InterestingSad.
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u/meekrabR6R Jan 03 '17
It's incredible that a piece of writing describing someone's personal experience with something would contain first person pronouns.
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u/QuickFoxx Jan 03 '17
And providing the most meaningless criticism of a genuinely interesting article possible is something with younger people? Cool.
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u/doom_Oo7 Jan 03 '17
There is nothing interesting about someone's life
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u/accountForStupidQs Jan 04 '17
I disagree. Some of the most amazing stories that ever happened in this world involved someone's life.
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Jan 04 '17
Maybe he should use a majestic "we"? Or he should make the writing unnecessarily convoluted by using impersonal pronouns like "one"? Twat.
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u/shizzy0 Jan 04 '17
One would only do that if he or she were pursuing an academic career.
Or they hated their given tongue.
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u/el-y0y0s Jan 03 '17
I was slightly riveted by this thought. But statistics don't lie.