<story><title>I would have hired Doug, but...</title><url>http://liveblog.co/users/davewiner/2015/05/06/iWouldHaveHiredDougBut.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>SCHiM</author><text>I can&amp;#x27;t imagine all the technologies and skills you guys have acquired.&lt;p&gt;If I may derail the conversation a little bit, may I ask if&amp;#x2F;how you use the things you&amp;#x27;ve learned today?&lt;p&gt;I mean, is it things like paradigms that have stuck with you like OOP&amp;#x2F;functional&amp;#x2F;w\e, or do you always structure your exception handling in a certain way, no matter the language? Are there skills&amp;#x2F;technologies you&amp;#x27;ve been using since you&amp;#x27;ve started? For example little scripts of basic that you&amp;#x27;ve never let go off that automate things like setting up build servers and the like?</text></item><item><author>lisper</author><text>I guess I might as well pile on.  Turned 50 last year.  Got my first paycheck for writing code junior year of high school (writing BASIC code on a Commodore PET!)  Working on my fifth startup now.</text></item><item><author>DanielBMarkham</author><text>Let&amp;#x27;s make it an even 4!&lt;p&gt;Just turned 50 yesterday. Wrote my first contract program in 1982 when I was 17.&lt;p&gt;Today I teach teams how to rock-and-roll. I also keep coding, but mostly as a hobby. It has nothing to do with programming -- I simply have too many irons in the fire to do all of the things I love as much as I want to.</text></item><item><author>blisterpeanuts</author><text>Me 3!  56, first prog job was in &amp;#x27;87. Now I&amp;#x27;m steadily employed in a dream job, working from home, writing mobile apps and exploring new &amp;quot;IoT&amp;quot; technologies.  If this job ends, which all jobs do sooner or later, I&amp;#x27;m hoping to starting my own company, finally, and ride that into retirement.  But life continues to be an adventure and you never know what lies around the next bend in the road!!!  Best of luck to you and to people of all ages in this amazing field.</text></item><item><author>ericssmith</author><text>I am 53 and started programming in 1977. I feel EXACTLY the same as you.</text></item><item><author>michaelangerman</author><text>I am 55 and have been programming computers since 1975 when I was 15 years old.  Do the math, I have been programming now for 40 years. Recently, I had a conversation with someone else about this topic and I told them that I have never been so excited about my career, the field of computer science, and most importantly the opportunities that exist today in the field of technology.  The excitement surrounding too many topics to list is amazing.  I only hope and wish that I am able to stay healthy and continue programming to the day I die.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>blisterpeanuts</author><text>SCHiM: &amp;quot;is it things like paradigms that have stuck with you...&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;For me it&amp;#x27;s always been about &lt;i&gt;problem solving&lt;/i&gt; rather than simple fascination with some particular technology. If I can solve a problem with a keyboard macro in Emacs, great.  If it &lt;i&gt;requires&lt;/i&gt; Perl or Java or javascript, so be it.&lt;p&gt;I try to use the tool that&amp;#x27;s appropriate. If I can solve a problem quickly and move onto something more interesting, one-and-done.&lt;p&gt;If I have to stop and learn something new (e.g., WKWebView in iOS ObjC) to get my task done, so be it, and I&amp;#x27;ll put in some late nights to get there because at my age, I&amp;#x27;m a bit paranoid about &lt;i&gt;looking bad&lt;/i&gt; so I try to give the good folks at HQ no reason to doubt me.  I spend a lot of time on Stack Overflow and Youtube doing concentrated learning.&lt;p&gt;But the real thing is what others have also mentioned:  properly defining a problem that needs to be solved, proper communication, keep good records, and try to maintain transparency, honesty, and pleasant comportment at all times.&lt;p&gt;Honestly the older I get, the less I notice people&amp;#x27;s age.  If someone half my age knows something I don&amp;#x27;t, then the way I see it, they have something to teach me.  I&amp;#x27;ve been to many conferences and watched many youtube tutorials where the teacher was very young (from my wizened perspective) but the &lt;i&gt;information&lt;/i&gt; is why I&amp;#x27;m there and that&amp;#x27;s all I care about.&lt;p&gt;What do I think about young people?  (you didn&amp;#x27;t ask but I&amp;#x27;m saying it anyway)&lt;p&gt;I love young people.  They have so much spirit, so much energy and creativity.  I keep hearing critical (snarky) things about millennials this, X-gen that.  But I don&amp;#x27;t see it.  The young people I&amp;#x27;ve been around (for a while I was back in school full time, surrounded by 20-somethings and a few 30-somethings) were a joy.  Fun, humorous, inquisitive.&lt;p&gt;Everyone has his faults, not least myself, and I believe as we get older we become more tolerant of others&amp;#x27; faults and shortcomings.  In fact that may be the single hallmark of growing older (apart from physical issues).</text></comment>
<story><title>I would have hired Doug, but...</title><url>http://liveblog.co/users/davewiner/2015/05/06/iWouldHaveHiredDougBut.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>SCHiM</author><text>I can&amp;#x27;t imagine all the technologies and skills you guys have acquired.&lt;p&gt;If I may derail the conversation a little bit, may I ask if&amp;#x2F;how you use the things you&amp;#x27;ve learned today?&lt;p&gt;I mean, is it things like paradigms that have stuck with you like OOP&amp;#x2F;functional&amp;#x2F;w\e, or do you always structure your exception handling in a certain way, no matter the language? Are there skills&amp;#x2F;technologies you&amp;#x27;ve been using since you&amp;#x27;ve started? For example little scripts of basic that you&amp;#x27;ve never let go off that automate things like setting up build servers and the like?</text></item><item><author>lisper</author><text>I guess I might as well pile on.  Turned 50 last year.  Got my first paycheck for writing code junior year of high school (writing BASIC code on a Commodore PET!)  Working on my fifth startup now.</text></item><item><author>DanielBMarkham</author><text>Let&amp;#x27;s make it an even 4!&lt;p&gt;Just turned 50 yesterday. Wrote my first contract program in 1982 when I was 17.&lt;p&gt;Today I teach teams how to rock-and-roll. I also keep coding, but mostly as a hobby. It has nothing to do with programming -- I simply have too many irons in the fire to do all of the things I love as much as I want to.</text></item><item><author>blisterpeanuts</author><text>Me 3!  56, first prog job was in &amp;#x27;87. Now I&amp;#x27;m steadily employed in a dream job, working from home, writing mobile apps and exploring new &amp;quot;IoT&amp;quot; technologies.  If this job ends, which all jobs do sooner or later, I&amp;#x27;m hoping to starting my own company, finally, and ride that into retirement.  But life continues to be an adventure and you never know what lies around the next bend in the road!!!  Best of luck to you and to people of all ages in this amazing field.</text></item><item><author>ericssmith</author><text>I am 53 and started programming in 1977. I feel EXACTLY the same as you.</text></item><item><author>michaelangerman</author><text>I am 55 and have been programming computers since 1975 when I was 15 years old.  Do the math, I have been programming now for 40 years. Recently, I had a conversation with someone else about this topic and I told them that I have never been so excited about my career, the field of computer science, and most importantly the opportunities that exist today in the field of technology.  The excitement surrounding too many topics to list is amazing.  I only hope and wish that I am able to stay healthy and continue programming to the day I die.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>lisper</author><text>No more BASIC, but I still code in Common Lisp whenever I can.  And I&amp;#x27;m using some library code that I wrote when I was in grad school 25 years ago.&lt;p&gt;Once you grok Lisp, everything else is easy.  You come to realize that the vast majority of what passes for &amp;quot;new technologies&amp;quot; is really just a re-discovery of something that exists (or is easily implemented) in CL.  That makes it a lot easier (if a tad frustrating at times) to keep up.&lt;p&gt;EDIT: CLOS, and generic functions in particular, are a HUGE lever that no other language has co-opted yet.</text></comment>