[ale] OT where do all the old programmers go.

[Pete Hardie]

I've had different experience - still getting paid to write code after all
these years

On Sun, Apr 12, 2015 at 10:55 AM, DJ-Pfulio <DJPfulio at jdpfu.com> wrote:

> On 04/12/2015 09:34 AM, Atlanta Geek wrote:
> > Im well into my 40s and am finding that I am normally the oldest
> developer in my
> > team. Im not sure how this happened or when this happened (that 7 year
> stint at
> > a company I got too comfortable at was like a time warp.)  I also came
> across
> > this article:
> >
> http://improvingsoftware.com/2009/05/19/programmers-before-you-turn-40-get-a-plan-b/
> >
> > So where have all the 90s developers gone.  Cause there was a lot of us.
> >
>
> For me, programming was an entry level job.
>
> I suppose I was slightly above average in skill - still making design
> mistakes
> after a decade.  Out of the 100 of so programmers I've worked with
> directly over
> the years, only 5 or so were true "artists."  So with those numbers as
> estimates, 5% are really great and should program for their entire lives.
> 95%
> use it to launch into other careers ... like brew-masters, bicycle shop
> owners,
> and even technical architects.
>
> IME, very few become system admins come from a programming background. The
> devops people seem to be more programmers, but didn't learn system
> administration, so they make the same old mistakes. But they aren't
> hampered by
> old-school knowledge either.
>
> Perhaps if I'd found a programming job that paid as much as being an
> architect,
> I would have stayed programming? Money can make people change jobs.  After
> being
> a software architect AND coding for a few years, i was moved into a
> technical
> manager role and hated it.  No more coding. Days spent prioritizing
> features and
> bug fixes for my team sucked.  Moved into systems architecture after a job
> change and got lots of training on hardware from all the popular vendors.
> My
> income grew.  Few software jobs pay that kind of money. Very few.
>
> Retired now. Haven't written any C/C++ in about 15 yrs, beyond a few
> hello-world
> things.  I've played with RoR, Python, Perl, bash, Go, even Android-Java.
>
> Still write a little perl - usually on the back-end service side - REST
> stuff,
> but with minimal GUIs too.  Occasionally, I'll hack some small glue
> together too
> - for automation.
>
> For me, programming was an entry level job.  Where have all the old
> programmers
> gone?  Everywhere except to other programming jobs.
>
> _______________________________________________
> Ale mailing list
> Ale at ale.org
> http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
> See JOBS, ANNOUNCE and SCHOOLS lists at
> http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo
>



-- 
Pete Hardie
--------
Better Living Through Bitmaps
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mail.ale.org/pipermail/ale/attachments/20150412/eeef4fdc/attachment.html>