How Many Years Coding
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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
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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'm 64 and I have been doing this for 40 years. I currently specialize in the Microsoft .NET development environments. I know what you are saying about so many new technologies coming out but a lot of it is just fluff that does nothing to really benefit the developer or the user. In this vein, I find MVC and its many outgrowths to be one of the biggest problems facing an industry that in the corporate environments often require very complex interfaces. You can do this with MVC but why bother when you will get similar performance with ASP.NET Web-Forms and only half the effort? Many of these new technologies are being hyped by the younger crowd who I have found have little knowledge as to how to design complex systems, which is demonstrated by mixing MVC paradigms with such development processes such as Agile, neither of which have moved the rate of project failure a single digit down from its consistent high of around 70%. As to the passion; well I am wearing out but not because of the technologies or the work. I just can't take working with so many incompetent technical managers any more. Technical managers don't give a wit about proper software design paradigms and are willing to throw any crap against the wall just to get something done, while many users are left in a lurch without proper requirements development since long ago the industry shed the positions of systems analyst and business analyst as it was thought to be "cheaper" to let the developers do everything. Well we know how that is working out... I would be interested in any and all comments (just no profanity please...)
Steve Naidamast Black Falcon Software, Inc. blackfalconsoftware@outlook.com
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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
You Sir DO have the record as far as i'm concerned, having started a year before I was born lol. If I push it I can say I started on programmable calculators a year or so before computers, either 76 or 77, cant remember exactly, but I take my hat off to you :)
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PJ Arends wrote:
never professionally
:omg: :wtf: No kidding ? And I thought you were one of the many great professionals out there ! What are you doing for a living then, if I may ask ? And who is that super cute lil'girl in your bio ?
~RaGE();
I think words like 'destiny' are a way of trying to find order where none exists. - Christian Graus Entropy isn't what it used to.
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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 began coding in 1971 with a part-time job while in high school (long story). My first language was Fortran, then Assembler for 15 years, on to C for 10 years, next to Cold Fusion, and now VB.Net and C#. I still enjoy coding and have resisted going into management for that very reason. I could make more money supervising people and spending hours in meetings, but I would not be happy. I've seen more than one technician follow the management route and end up a bad manager. I realized a long time ago that I did not want to become one of those statistics. It has been many years since I put in 80+ hour weeks to meet deadlines. Those types of hours are passion killers and usually indicate a problem with project scope/timeframe, management, or even that you're being taken advantage of (in my opinion and experience). A word about "passion"; Merriam-Webster defines it as "a strong feeling of enthusiasm or excitement for something or about doing something". I wholeheartedly agree with this definition. Employers on the other hand, tend to define it as an all-consuming desire to work in complete disregard of one's personal life or health. This is a mistake. As for the new languages, frameworks, operating systems, etc., some of them are examples of "everything new is old again". But my approach is to be informed about the new fangled gadgets, keep watch on where the industry is headed, and select whatever interests me or might further my career. I don't know of an occupation my programming skills could be transferred into. I was a dancer many years ago, but at the age of 60 I live in fear of falling and breaking a hip so I think that dream will remain just that. :-D I'll likely remain that old, crusty, programmer in the corner cubicle for several years to come.
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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 graduated in Physics in 1966 and went to work for Boeing in Seattle acquiring and reducing data from wind tunnel tests, calculating lift and drag, measuring noise from directional mics. Next stop was working on the OS at Prime Computer. Long story short, I've been writing code since I was in college and still am. Today, storage is king and I'm deep in iSCSI, Fibre Channel and Windows integration. I still write code every day, every week.
StCroixSkipper, aka Scott Moreland
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I began coding in 1971 with a part-time job while in high school (long story). My first language was Fortran, then Assembler for 15 years, on to C for 10 years, next to Cold Fusion, and now VB.Net and C#. I still enjoy coding and have resisted going into management for that very reason. I could make more money supervising people and spending hours in meetings, but I would not be happy. I've seen more than one technician follow the management route and end up a bad manager. I realized a long time ago that I did not want to become one of those statistics. It has been many years since I put in 80+ hour weeks to meet deadlines. Those types of hours are passion killers and usually indicate a problem with project scope/timeframe, management, or even that you're being taken advantage of (in my opinion and experience). A word about "passion"; Merriam-Webster defines it as "a strong feeling of enthusiasm or excitement for something or about doing something". I wholeheartedly agree with this definition. Employers on the other hand, tend to define it as an all-consuming desire to work in complete disregard of one's personal life or health. This is a mistake. As for the new languages, frameworks, operating systems, etc., some of them are examples of "everything new is old again". But my approach is to be informed about the new fangled gadgets, keep watch on where the industry is headed, and select whatever interests me or might further my career. I don't know of an occupation my programming skills could be transferred into. I was a dancer many years ago, but at the age of 60 I live in fear of falling and breaking a hip so I think that dream will remain just that. :-D I'll likely remain that old, crusty, programmer in the corner cubicle for several years to come.
Hi Ed thanks for replying, I cant believe how many people have done so lol - I replied earlier to someone explaining that i've had my own small software business for 20+ years and on occasions i've had to put in long weeks sometimes for months on end, 6am to 9pm which makes 80hrs small potatoes at times when ive been writing commercial systems to compete with larger companies and ensure my survival, which I think has worked out quite well. my last large commercial system took years to develop and I got no revenue from it during that time as well as having fee earning work to do, so couldn't hang about too much and had to drive hard to achieve my goal, but im seeing a lot of benefit now I suppose. GL Bob
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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.
Got started learning programming just before high school in 1969, after high school was a computer operator that rewrote programs to make them faster and easier to use (the "systems programmers" had no concept of time/motion), first professional job was in 1976. First published programs in 1980 (game cartridge) and then Apple II utilities in 1982. (I'll let you do the math) Worked 100+ hours/week doing conveyors because we couldn't program the conveyors (each was unique) until they were built and client expected to use it shortly after. I wrote a table driven universal carton tracking system in FORTH that new manager didn't understand and he declared future programs were to be written in "C" to be "commercial." I would have written a simulator so we could do simultaneous development during construction, but idiot manager insisted on being an idiot. He thought job was 8 to 5. Out in the field he got to experience his first 12 hour day (clients expect you to cover all three shifts) and boy was his butt dragging at the end. Cheer up, I said, just wait for your first 36 hour day and yes, there will be 48's as well. Because of him (and a big raise) I left and he didn't last much longer. I still miss that job. Required everything I knew and a little bit more besides to keep it fun and challenging. I love my current job as a manager that gets to program. A previous job where I was accidentally left in charge had no time to program in. Still work on outside projects on weekends to learn stuff regular job does not currently use, but twice now, the knowledge acquired from the outside projects have been applied at work and saved the company vast sums of money. I do not plan on retiring.
Psychosis at 10 Film at 11 Those who do not remember the past, are doomed to repeat it. Those who do not remember the past, cannot build upon it.