How Many Years Coding
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I've been writing & supporting code for commercial and bespoke (mainly business) systems since 1978 on many different platforms and languages, and 36 years later I still love it, still do it for a living, & am writing my best stuff, but look at all the new languages, frameworks, operating systems etc. and think "here we go again" so am getting increasingly reluctant to want to keep re-learning it all once more, and at 52 I still often put in 80+ hour weeks to meet deadlines but can feel a bit of the passion dying year on year, so how long have others kept on? and if you moved away to a different sphere or know of others that did, what did they do? I earn good money which is hard to give up but it isn't the be all and end all, i'm just looking for something different where I can put my experience to good use and have a tad more fun over and above being some sort of 'manager'. Thanks.
Wow ... this read like I could have written it! I, too, have been 'round the block a few times in this field (38). I started just a couple years before you did. ('76). It's been a cool ride, no? I share your sentiment about moving into management. I feel that it's for the birds, honestly. You've heard the saying: "Those who can't do, manage!" I'm an avid Dilbert fan; the "pointy-haired boss" being the spitting image of a boss I had some years back. Like you, I still enjoy coding (and also like you a LOT of my work is troubleshooting). As for actual development, I'm spending considerably less time doing that now. My main function with my existing company is the support and troubleshooting of our code. We were bought out about 5 years ago and the parent company needs me to keep it running while they transition our client base to their product. As it is a pretty large system with many clients I'll probably be doing that for quite some time yet. I'm in no hurry to get into another big development project to be honest. On my own time I write systems for small businesses that could not otherwise afford it. My current project is automation of a co-op farm that we participate in. I do that in exchange for a share in the farm. I also have several programs I've written for automating things for myself which I maintain and improve as I need new features. I tinker with those things as I have the time & inclination. To me, coding was never really about money (I mean, yeah, I had to make a living but I think you understand). It's nice to just write when I feel like it and experiment without having to worry about whether someone else will like it or not. I'm finding that more and more of my time is being devoted to bike rides, building a chicken coop, stuff like that. I was pretty passionate about software development for a real long time but I'm slowly transitioning away from doing that all the time. Someday maybe (if my health holds up) I'll go drive a bus or do something that doesn't involve burning my brain out. ;)
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The first lines of code I wrote were in Basic on a Texas Instruments TI99-4A; we then were in 1983, and I was 10. But I only code seriously since 10 years now; I've merely known only .NET languages (a litlle bit of VB6, but I quit it quickly). Edit: I forgot to mention that I studied Prolog during the last year before graduation. I remember we had a project, a nice program that allowed us to check every fact about greek deities genealogy. From this language, I forgot almost everything, though.
There are two kinds of people in the world: those who separate humankind in two distinct categories, and those who don't. "I have two hobbies: breasts." DSK
Ah, the TI99-4A. Not a bad little machine as I recall. A bit different to all the others. Did you have the speech synthesizer that plugged into the side? That was cool.
Regards, Rob Philpott.
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Ah, the TI99-4A. Not a bad little machine as I recall. A bit different to all the others. Did you have the speech synthesizer that plugged into the side? That was cool.
Regards, Rob Philpott.
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I've been writing & supporting code for commercial and bespoke (mainly business) systems since 1978 on many different platforms and languages, and 36 years later I still love it, still do it for a living, & am writing my best stuff, but look at all the new languages, frameworks, operating systems etc. and think "here we go again" so am getting increasingly reluctant to want to keep re-learning it all once more, and at 52 I still often put in 80+ hour weeks to meet deadlines but can feel a bit of the passion dying year on year, so how long have others kept on? and if you moved away to a different sphere or know of others that did, what did they do? I earn good money which is hard to give up but it isn't the be all and end all, i'm just looking for something different where I can put my experience to good use and have a tad more fun over and above being some sort of 'manager'. Thanks.
I recently started taking violin lessons again so that if (when?) I get tired of coding, I can hopefully join an orchestra :-D But while the challenges remain, along with the thrill of solving them, I don't think I'll get tired of coding quickly :) Open plan offices, red tape and poor project planning/management, on the other hand... X|
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I've been writing & supporting code for commercial and bespoke (mainly business) systems since 1978 on many different platforms and languages, and 36 years later I still love it, still do it for a living, & am writing my best stuff, but look at all the new languages, frameworks, operating systems etc. and think "here we go again" so am getting increasingly reluctant to want to keep re-learning it all once more, and at 52 I still often put in 80+ hour weeks to meet deadlines but can feel a bit of the passion dying year on year, so how long have others kept on? and if you moved away to a different sphere or know of others that did, what did they do? I earn good money which is hard to give up but it isn't the be all and end all, i'm just looking for something different where I can put my experience to good use and have a tad more fun over and above being some sort of 'manager'. Thanks.
Started coding in grade 3 (81-82) on a TI-99 4/A, though at the time that was mostly from the coding magazines. That was what started it all though. Years later moved onto the C64, then PC. Still love it, but not every day. I still have had weeks of 80+ hours, but not with the same fervor that I did when I was younger! What I tend to enjoy more is the system analysis and design and then passing that on to others to bring the ideas to life.
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I've been writing & supporting code for commercial and bespoke (mainly business) systems since 1978 on many different platforms and languages, and 36 years later I still love it, still do it for a living, & am writing my best stuff, but look at all the new languages, frameworks, operating systems etc. and think "here we go again" so am getting increasingly reluctant to want to keep re-learning it all once more, and at 52 I still often put in 80+ hour weeks to meet deadlines but can feel a bit of the passion dying year on year, so how long have others kept on? and if you moved away to a different sphere or know of others that did, what did they do? I earn good money which is hard to give up but it isn't the be all and end all, i'm just looking for something different where I can put my experience to good use and have a tad more fun over and above being some sort of 'manager'. Thanks.
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That one was short.
"If you don't fail at least 90 percent of the time, you're not aiming high enough." Alan Kay.
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Man, with all the responses I feel like a kid around here. I started learning programming in 1999, but started doing it professionally since 2007. Heck I wasn't even born when most of the other guys started. Anyways, I've noticed that whenever I feel my passion for it dying out a bit, if there is someone that I know personally that I can teach stuff to or that I consider as "competition" I try harder and learn more stuff, do more of it in my spare time and my passion lights up even brighter than before. One thing to note is that 80+ hrs a week of ANY SINGLE THING and I'd be sick of it pretty quickly, heck, even videogames which I also love. My suggestion is that you try and cut down your hours to the normal 40 a week or even just like a part time job (maybe 20 - 30 a week), if possible of course. Then you could use the spare time to try and mentor some young mind on this road, try new IT/programming (maybe get an Arduino, Raspberry Pi, Beaglebone?) related stuff or just get a different hobby altogether (Woodworking? Working on cars? Hunting?). Think of what would you do if money was never gonna be an issue, then save money, and go do it.
If you think you can do a thing or think you can't do a thing, you're right - Henry Ford Emmanuel Medina Lopez
I started learning in 2003 in college. I was always into computers and taking them apart and rebuilding, but never was coding. I begin professionally in 2007 as well, so for 7 years as a profession now. I normally put in 40 hours at work and then 10 to 20 with at home projects and part time work. It is more like 10 hours with family stuff, but sometimes get up to 20.
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I've been writing & supporting code for commercial and bespoke (mainly business) systems since 1978 on many different platforms and languages, and 36 years later I still love it, still do it for a living, & am writing my best stuff, but look at all the new languages, frameworks, operating systems etc. and think "here we go again" so am getting increasingly reluctant to want to keep re-learning it all once more, and at 52 I still often put in 80+ hour weeks to meet deadlines but can feel a bit of the passion dying year on year, so how long have others kept on? and if you moved away to a different sphere or know of others that did, what did they do? I earn good money which is hard to give up but it isn't the be all and end all, i'm just looking for something different where I can put my experience to good use and have a tad more fun over and above being some sort of 'manager'. Thanks.
How I wish that I shared your experience! I spent 28 years working as a contractor (good pay; no benefits) and ended up going on total disability in 2008. But the love of coding remains strong within me and I am always downloading the latest and greatest trial software.
Bruce Baker - brucebrookebaker@yahoo.com
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I've been writing & supporting code for commercial and bespoke (mainly business) systems since 1978 on many different platforms and languages, and 36 years later I still love it, still do it for a living, & am writing my best stuff, but look at all the new languages, frameworks, operating systems etc. and think "here we go again" so am getting increasingly reluctant to want to keep re-learning it all once more, and at 52 I still often put in 80+ hour weeks to meet deadlines but can feel a bit of the passion dying year on year, so how long have others kept on? and if you moved away to a different sphere or know of others that did, what did they do? I earn good money which is hard to give up but it isn't the be all and end all, i'm just looking for something different where I can put my experience to good use and have a tad more fun over and above being some sort of 'manager'. Thanks.
I took BASIC and COBOL on a PDP-11 when I went to community college back in the mid 70s. I bought an Apple 2 when they first came out while working on a 4 year degree. Between the Apple 2 and Pascal I was hooked. I was studying electrical engineering at the time and learned a little about assembly language by punching hex codes into an 8080 development board. As far as programming goes, I never looked back. Graduated in 1978 then went on for an MSCS and have been doing embedded programming since 1980. I also owned a TRS80 Model 100 which was one of the first (the first?) portable computers. It had built in BASIC and 32K or so of persistent storage, even had a text editor and some simple business apps built in. Unfortunately what used to be tremendous fun for me is now just a way to earn a living. I'm going to retire soon and hopefully start doing it again for enjoyment instead of for pay.
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I generally don't bother too much on here today gone tomorrow forum posts but I've had articles published in the past (mainly about poker) and been paid for them which was great, but writing is an underpaid occupation and hard to make money at bearing in mind the time it takes, but I did dabble a bit for fun and uploaded some stuff to my blog site that I don't bother much with now, if you have nothing better to do and want to kill a short while have a look at www.winbase.info. GL
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I took BASIC and COBOL on a PDP-11 when I went to community college back in the mid 70s. I bought an Apple 2 when they first came out while working on a 4 year degree. Between the Apple 2 and Pascal I was hooked. I was studying electrical engineering at the time and learned a little about assembly language by punching hex codes into an 8080 development board. As far as programming goes, I never looked back. Graduated in 1978 then went on for an MSCS and have been doing embedded programming since 1980. I also owned a TRS80 Model 100 which was one of the first (the first?) portable computers. It had built in BASIC and 32K or so of persistent storage, even had a text editor and some simple business apps built in. Unfortunately what used to be tremendous fun for me is now just a way to earn a living. I'm going to retire soon and hopefully start doing it again for enjoyment instead of for pay.
ahhh the TRS-80. my first PC was a video genie which was a trs-80 copy, cassette tape for storage, and 8k I think. if you wanted to expand to 32k you had to buy an external unit the size of a shoebox that had its own power supply lol. those early days of little memory have always stayed with me and im sure have helped me to write concise and reusable code which i try to do to this day - happy days !! GL
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_WinBase_ wrote:
I still often put in 80+
I have never had to do that. I did put in a year of 60+ hour weeks and that wore me out. I do enjoy development but not when that is all there is in life.
There are only 10 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
Correct. If you're consistently putting in 80+ hour weeks, you're doing it wrong. Period, full stop. Either unrealistic goals are being set, or the problem it not well enough understood. It's no wonder there's burnout after that sort of period. It's at a point like this one needs to step back and question the process. Why do I perceive the need for such long weeks? Who's going to die if some feature is delayed so I have a reasonable work/life balance? (The answer to the second is very likely, "nobody"). P.S. to answer the OP's question, I've been grinding along since 1986. Looking back over all that time, I don't recall a single time when, after putting in significant extra time, the world was any different than if I hadn't.
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I've been writing & supporting code for commercial and bespoke (mainly business) systems since 1978 on many different platforms and languages, and 36 years later I still love it, still do it for a living, & am writing my best stuff, but look at all the new languages, frameworks, operating systems etc. and think "here we go again" so am getting increasingly reluctant to want to keep re-learning it all once more, and at 52 I still often put in 80+ hour weeks to meet deadlines but can feel a bit of the passion dying year on year, so how long have others kept on? and if you moved away to a different sphere or know of others that did, what did they do? I earn good money which is hard to give up but it isn't the be all and end all, i'm just looking for something different where I can put my experience to good use and have a tad more fun over and above being some sort of 'manager'. Thanks.
I did my first program (a simple calculator) when I was 6 (1986), on a Sinclair Z80 with Basic... It was even stored in a DataSette. That's how I started in math...
I'm on a Fuzzy State: Between 0 an 1
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I've been writing & supporting code for commercial and bespoke (mainly business) systems since 1978 on many different platforms and languages, and 36 years later I still love it, still do it for a living, & am writing my best stuff, but look at all the new languages, frameworks, operating systems etc. and think "here we go again" so am getting increasingly reluctant to want to keep re-learning it all once more, and at 52 I still often put in 80+ hour weeks to meet deadlines but can feel a bit of the passion dying year on year, so how long have others kept on? and if you moved away to a different sphere or know of others that did, what did they do? I earn good money which is hard to give up but it isn't the be all and end all, i'm just looking for something different where I can put my experience to good use and have a tad more fun over and above being some sort of 'manager'. Thanks.
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I've been writing & supporting code for commercial and bespoke (mainly business) systems since 1978 on many different platforms and languages, and 36 years later I still love it, still do it for a living, & am writing my best stuff, but look at all the new languages, frameworks, operating systems etc. and think "here we go again" so am getting increasingly reluctant to want to keep re-learning it all once more, and at 52 I still often put in 80+ hour weeks to meet deadlines but can feel a bit of the passion dying year on year, so how long have others kept on? and if you moved away to a different sphere or know of others that did, what did they do? I earn good money which is hard to give up but it isn't the be all and end all, i'm just looking for something different where I can put my experience to good use and have a tad more fun over and above being some sort of 'manager'. Thanks.
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I've been writing & supporting code for commercial and bespoke (mainly business) systems since 1978 on many different platforms and languages, and 36 years later I still love it, still do it for a living, & am writing my best stuff, but look at all the new languages, frameworks, operating systems etc. and think "here we go again" so am getting increasingly reluctant to want to keep re-learning it all once more, and at 52 I still often put in 80+ hour weeks to meet deadlines but can feel a bit of the passion dying year on year, so how long have others kept on? and if you moved away to a different sphere or know of others that did, what did they do? I earn good money which is hard to give up but it isn't the be all and end all, i'm just looking for something different where I can put my experience to good use and have a tad more fun over and above being some sort of 'manager'. Thanks.
My first coding experiences were back in 1980 when I was 10, and after that I never stopped. I've been working as a software engineer since 1989, and in 1994 I founded my small software house, which is still doing great. So, I've been coding for 34 years overall, 25 as a professional. Not bad. :) I still have tons of fun and keep getting those blissfull experiences where you are stuck to your keyboard, immersed in the wonderful universe where you are The Creator, and hours go by while the outside world is just a faint echo from far away. In my case, the frustration comes more from the managerial part of my job, which unluckily cannot be put aside, especially since I'm the owner of the software house... I am and will always be a technician and a geek, and although I am not that bad as a manager (but only cause my company is so small! ;)), I still feel like all the time I spend in meetings, presentations and such is just wasted. I feel the same about the time I spend driving when I have to visit a customer (this is a very small amount of my time, luckily - thanks God for teleservice and global communications! :cool:). I realize this is just a very subjective point of view, and that's not wasted time all. It's actually time spent in order to allow my company to prosper and let me do what I like best: coding. Still, that's how I feel. If I ever had to be forced to a managerial-only role, I think I would slowly wither and die!!! :sigh: Having said all that, I can understand your frustration, since by what you say what's wearing you out is not your job as a coder itself, but rather the fact you are forced to work in a very stressful environment. I wish you a very good luck and hope your situation gets better. I sure know it would wear me out too! :)
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice, but not in practice. - Anonymous A computer is a stupid machine with the ability to do incredibly smart things, while computer programmers are smart people with the ability to do incredibly stupid things. They are, in short, a perfect match. - B. Bryson
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I've been writing & supporting code for commercial and bespoke (mainly business) systems since 1978 on many different platforms and languages, and 36 years later I still love it, still do it for a living, & am writing my best stuff, but look at all the new languages, frameworks, operating systems etc. and think "here we go again" so am getting increasingly reluctant to want to keep re-learning it all once more, and at 52 I still often put in 80+ hour weeks to meet deadlines but can feel a bit of the passion dying year on year, so how long have others kept on? and if you moved away to a different sphere or know of others that did, what did they do? I earn good money which is hard to give up but it isn't the be all and end all, i'm just looking for something different where I can put my experience to good use and have a tad more fun over and above being some sort of 'manager'. Thanks.
I have the record. I started in 1960 with UNIVAC working on the 1st computers for NAVY ships CIC operations. Still coding at 77 on Vari-lite moving lights. (Lots of steper motors.)
Larry