Aging in tech?
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Programming tiny connectable gadgets - "Internet of Things or IoT gadgets" is an absolute joy. No frameworks to muddy the water - with 520kB of RAM you can't afford them, no abstractions to complicate the process, just you and the bare metal. Building them is fun too. But part of me wonders if it isn't because I'm getting old, and learning all these technologies feels more and more like a waste of what time I have left. I mean, I love to learn, and I love to be challenged but it has to be on my terms. In some ways, that has kept me from moving forward - designing the backend of a website these days? Get someone else - I'd be using 10 year old designs. I like these little things in a way because they're a throwback to when I learned to code. Part of me feels like I get a mulligan only I get to go back with what I know now. =) But still, the parser generators and other projects have also been newer technology avoidant outside this one particular arena. A lot of it was developed using theories that were emergent in the 1990s in computer science, so it's not a huge deal these days. I'm also struggling to wrap my head around the way people are going about machine learning. It's entirely different than how I would have and how I used to build learning systems, however unsophisticated they may have been compared to today's tech. Anyone else ever feel that way?
Real programmers use butterflies
Maybe you should consider combining the two - make a parser generator for a custom language you design or one not available on the machine. Maybe a code generator for dealing with I/O of various flavors. I am sure you can come up with something that bridges those interests, if that is something that compels you.
"They have a consciousness, they have a life, they have a soul! Damn you! Let the rabbits wear glasses! Save our brothers! Can I get an amen?"
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Programming tiny connectable gadgets - "Internet of Things or IoT gadgets" is an absolute joy. No frameworks to muddy the water - with 520kB of RAM you can't afford them, no abstractions to complicate the process, just you and the bare metal. Building them is fun too. But part of me wonders if it isn't because I'm getting old, and learning all these technologies feels more and more like a waste of what time I have left. I mean, I love to learn, and I love to be challenged but it has to be on my terms. In some ways, that has kept me from moving forward - designing the backend of a website these days? Get someone else - I'd be using 10 year old designs. I like these little things in a way because they're a throwback to when I learned to code. Part of me feels like I get a mulligan only I get to go back with what I know now. =) But still, the parser generators and other projects have also been newer technology avoidant outside this one particular arena. A lot of it was developed using theories that were emergent in the 1990s in computer science, so it's not a huge deal these days. I'm also struggling to wrap my head around the way people are going about machine learning. It's entirely different than how I would have and how I used to build learning systems, however unsophisticated they may have been compared to today's tech. Anyone else ever feel that way?
Real programmers use butterflies
I've always enjoyed "programming in the small". I've found it's possible to do this in any development environment if you have the mindset for it. The question you have to ask yourself is: "What's the minimum amount of code I can write that does the job?" or perhaps more to the point, _"What's the least-_engineered code I can write?" This notion is most easily expressed as things not to do. If you're thinking of acronyms like KISS[^] or YAGNI[^], you're on the right track. I always liked the notion that "every layer of abstraction is another layer of obscurity", also known as "it's frameworks all the way down". Just because you have two or more types of 'things' in your program, you don't necessarily need to create abstractions for them. I especially dislike abstraction layers that are added solely for the purpose of adhering to some arbitrary metric or style guideline.
Software Zen:
delete this; -
Programming tiny connectable gadgets - "Internet of Things or IoT gadgets" is an absolute joy. No frameworks to muddy the water - with 520kB of RAM you can't afford them, no abstractions to complicate the process, just you and the bare metal. Building them is fun too. But part of me wonders if it isn't because I'm getting old, and learning all these technologies feels more and more like a waste of what time I have left. I mean, I love to learn, and I love to be challenged but it has to be on my terms. In some ways, that has kept me from moving forward - designing the backend of a website these days? Get someone else - I'd be using 10 year old designs. I like these little things in a way because they're a throwback to when I learned to code. Part of me feels like I get a mulligan only I get to go back with what I know now. =) But still, the parser generators and other projects have also been newer technology avoidant outside this one particular arena. A lot of it was developed using theories that were emergent in the 1990s in computer science, so it's not a huge deal these days. I'm also struggling to wrap my head around the way people are going about machine learning. It's entirely different than how I would have and how I used to build learning systems, however unsophisticated they may have been compared to today's tech. Anyone else ever feel that way?
Real programmers use butterflies
I'm the opposite, willing to use 'older frameworks' as long as they get the job done. If a new project comes up, I'm always partial to do it in something familiar. I don't mind learning something new if there is a real benefit to it, but I don't have the time. A good example of this would be using WebForms/WinForms with framework 4.0. :laugh: Besides, I have 20+ years of personal code snippets, reusable code, and some code that writes code which means I can be super-productive when I need to be. :) When I do find myself having to learn a new framework (especially web) I'm reminded of how much easier it is these days (google + experience) than it was when I was learning Classic ASP in the late '90s! Anyone remember PWS on 98? :laugh:
"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse "Hope is contagious"
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honey the codewitch wrote:
if it isn't because I'm getting old
Join the club. None of us is getting younger, and from what I can see, most of the active CP members aren't kids.
honey the codewitch wrote:
learning all these technologies feels more and more like a waste of what time I have left.
Once you've learnt to use a few of these frameworks, you realise that they all claim to do the same thing - using the philosophy du jour. Don't get me wrong - some of these ideas are interesting, but if one has to get work out of the door, one sticks to a basic set of tools and uses them. I especially abhor the rats nest that has developed in web programming, where using one package drags in stuff from 1,001 other packages, leading to an unmaintainable mess.
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows. -- 6079 Smith W.
Daniel Pfeffer wrote:
from what I can see, most of the active CP members aren't kids.
A shadenfreude moment is coming. After all, who'll take care of Q&A posts as the future keeps replacing the past? I won't keep you guessing because you know what I was going to type: the current Q&A posters will share the depth and breadth of their knowledge. In fact - I'm going to make a separate post of that and then put the link right over here
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i've found this, it's quite fresh [Swipe Gestures Using a TFT Display](https://www.codeproject.com/Articles/5287929/Swipe-Gestures-Using-a-TFT-Display)
thanks.
Real programmers use butterflies
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> Programming tiny connectable gadgets - "Internet of Things or IoT gadgets" is an absolute joy. > No frameworks to muddy the water - with 520kB of RAM you can't afford them, no abstractions to complicate the process, just you and the bare metal. > Building them is fun too. i'd like to take part in this too. i just don't want to read (old, no time) dozen of articles to get 27 different opinions what is the best way, the economical opportunities, the future, the programming languages... if i'm not understanding the whole idea of IoT wrong, could you please point to a getting hands dirty info on the subject? what kind of device to buy and a platform that works with C or Asm and if it must be higher level can it be Lua od tiny JS 5.1? i hope one can get a job like this, away from all the: products, product offers, customers, reports...
I recommend using an ESP32 based development board. You can use Arduinos but they are more expensive and less capable, if slightly easier to work with, but that learning curve isn't a big deal. Adafruit makes the huzzah feather which i don't recommend. Hiletgo is a chinese brand I actually trust that makes a decent board and narrower than usual which makes it easier to build with on a solderless breadboard Another good one is the DOIT devkit ESP32. It's a bit wider, but all the pins are labeled, and Random Nerd Tutorials covers them explicitly - it doesn't matter a lot since they are all the same with the exception of what order their pins come in, but still. If you have one, you can code against with The Arduino IDE[^] which is C++ but C-ish in the way people actually end up using it because embedded. (mostly No STL,mostly no heap, etc) As far as getting started, just google anything "Random Nerd Tutorials" They make the best guides on how to build using these ESP32 things.
Real programmers use butterflies
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Programming tiny connectable gadgets - "Internet of Things or IoT gadgets" is an absolute joy. No frameworks to muddy the water - with 520kB of RAM you can't afford them, no abstractions to complicate the process, just you and the bare metal. Building them is fun too. But part of me wonders if it isn't because I'm getting old, and learning all these technologies feels more and more like a waste of what time I have left. I mean, I love to learn, and I love to be challenged but it has to be on my terms. In some ways, that has kept me from moving forward - designing the backend of a website these days? Get someone else - I'd be using 10 year old designs. I like these little things in a way because they're a throwback to when I learned to code. Part of me feels like I get a mulligan only I get to go back with what I know now. =) But still, the parser generators and other projects have also been newer technology avoidant outside this one particular arena. A lot of it was developed using theories that were emergent in the 1990s in computer science, so it's not a huge deal these days. I'm also struggling to wrap my head around the way people are going about machine learning. It's entirely different than how I would have and how I used to build learning systems, however unsophisticated they may have been compared to today's tech. Anyone else ever feel that way?
Real programmers use butterflies
I struggle with this all of the time. A really big problem is people who over-architect things by insisting on chasing after the latest shiny thing or pattern, gumming up the code-base with endless libraries/dependencies and then run off to something else leaving an incomprehensible mess that has to be maintained. Add in some interfaces, code generation and various packages and many times I find myself asking: "Where is the code that actually does the thingy?" You cannot go to a controller (MVC) and find the database access code there - no, that is in a handler, but wait, it isn't there either because you've got it pushed off to EF - but the actual implementation is packed behind some generated code - and to edit that you must learn library X, Y, and Z... and it goes on and on for no real benefit.
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I struggle with this all of the time. A really big problem is people who over-architect things by insisting on chasing after the latest shiny thing or pattern, gumming up the code-base with endless libraries/dependencies and then run off to something else leaving an incomprehensible mess that has to be maintained. Add in some interfaces, code generation and various packages and many times I find myself asking: "Where is the code that actually does the thingy?" You cannot go to a controller (MVC) and find the database access code there - no, that is in a handler, but wait, it isn't there either because you've got it pushed off to EF - but the actual implementation is packed behind some generated code - and to edit that you must learn library X, Y, and Z... and it goes on and on for no real benefit.
We agree, and I say that as a prolific author of code generators. :laugh:
Real programmers use butterflies
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Programming tiny connectable gadgets - "Internet of Things or IoT gadgets" is an absolute joy. No frameworks to muddy the water - with 520kB of RAM you can't afford them, no abstractions to complicate the process, just you and the bare metal. Building them is fun too. But part of me wonders if it isn't because I'm getting old, and learning all these technologies feels more and more like a waste of what time I have left. I mean, I love to learn, and I love to be challenged but it has to be on my terms. In some ways, that has kept me from moving forward - designing the backend of a website these days? Get someone else - I'd be using 10 year old designs. I like these little things in a way because they're a throwback to when I learned to code. Part of me feels like I get a mulligan only I get to go back with what I know now. =) But still, the parser generators and other projects have also been newer technology avoidant outside this one particular arena. A lot of it was developed using theories that were emergent in the 1990s in computer science, so it's not a huge deal these days. I'm also struggling to wrap my head around the way people are going about machine learning. It's entirely different than how I would have and how I used to build learning systems, however unsophisticated they may have been compared to today's tech. Anyone else ever feel that way?
Real programmers use butterflies
My first professional dev job was as an embedded programmer at a fire alarm company. The best project I ever worked on there, was an interface between the devices of an earlier generation system (smoke & heat detectors, pull stations, etc.) and the latest generation system. We still used the waterfall methodology back then. My manager trusted me and gave me basically complete control of every phase. I ended up creating a state machine in C on an 8057 microcontroller. I will never forget that day the new gen system began talking to the older gen devices. It was still at the in-circuit emulator stage, of course, but that damn pull station over there, lit that damn LED on the front panel here! lol Good times. Now, to your point, the only thing constant in life is change. Nowhere is that more apparent than in software. I realized it very early on and made a commitment to lifelong learning. But that isn't to say there is only one path through the forest. I essentially followed my heart. At that fire alarm company back in the late 80's, I worked with nascent "expert system" dev environments to help the service techs in the field. I bought one of the early releases of BrainMaker from California Scientific (I think I still have the 3.5" floppys somewhere) around 1989. For you young'uns, life is too short to become trapped in the matrix! Take the red pill! Hack your own path through the forest. It's more dangerous, but by far more interesting. So, a little off topic. But I had fun. :)
Cheers, Mike Fidler "I intend to live forever - so far, so good." Steven Wright "I almost had a psychic girlfriend but she left me before we met." Also Steven Wright "I'm addicted to placebos. I could quit, but it wouldn't matter." Steven Wright yet again.
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But part of me wonders if it isn't because I'm getting old, and learning all these technologies feels more and more like a waste of what time I have left.
If you are wondering you probably are :D. This is one of my pet peeves: apart from whatever is taught in CS curriculum, we should have been taught to manage our careers like professional athletes. No professional tennis player expects to play in his forties. They move to coaching or live from whatever have accumulated. Same applies to programmers and specially to 10x ones: by the time you are 40 you start becoming a 5x, 3x,.. 0.1x :) You still can do useful things and be gainfully employed but the fun is over. Just my 0.02$
Mircea
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The reason one gets "old" is due to "time compression": when you don't learn anything new, one day is just like the rest. I once said to myself I was too old to learn that (something); then looking back, after x years, it now seems is ridiculous. I've stopped thinking about where a path might lead and if I have enough "time". It only got more interesting. It's the new domains you have to learn along the way.
It was only in wine that he laid down no limit for himself, but he did not allow himself to be confused by it. ― Confucian Analects: Rules of Confucius about his food
I have had a theory about this time compression too. One day like the rest is a big part of it. Nothing important for the brain to keep a vivid record about so it seems like the time is short. I notice the effect disappear when I go on vacation overseas where there is so much new to take in. There is also some effect of each year being a smaller portion of the total. So in wide retrospect, things seem to be going faster. Moral of the story: do new and interesting things!
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I've been a programmer for over 40 years, and here's what I've learned. Every advancement in development that promised to extend the life or improve performance of a given application, or make development faster and easier, will eventually be rendered ineffective under the weight of interference from management. Why bother even learning the new stuff if it's not going to matter in the end. I have three more years before I can retire. I'm glad. I'm pretty much done with my Entity Factory code, and have been struggling to maintain interest in writing the accompanying article. I'm simply tired of typing the text. I have to explain 26 screen shots, and I've only managed less than half that in the last two weeks. I haven't even started part 2, which is to explain the thousands of lines of WPF code. And I was intending to write a 3rd part that talked about converting the code to .Net Core, but... well... you know.
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
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You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
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When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013 -
Programming tiny connectable gadgets - "Internet of Things or IoT gadgets" is an absolute joy. No frameworks to muddy the water - with 520kB of RAM you can't afford them, no abstractions to complicate the process, just you and the bare metal. Building them is fun too. But part of me wonders if it isn't because I'm getting old, and learning all these technologies feels more and more like a waste of what time I have left. I mean, I love to learn, and I love to be challenged but it has to be on my terms. In some ways, that has kept me from moving forward - designing the backend of a website these days? Get someone else - I'd be using 10 year old designs. I like these little things in a way because they're a throwback to when I learned to code. Part of me feels like I get a mulligan only I get to go back with what I know now. =) But still, the parser generators and other projects have also been newer technology avoidant outside this one particular arena. A lot of it was developed using theories that were emergent in the 1990s in computer science, so it's not a huge deal these days. I'm also struggling to wrap my head around the way people are going about machine learning. It's entirely different than how I would have and how I used to build learning systems, however unsophisticated they may have been compared to today's tech. Anyone else ever feel that way?
Real programmers use butterflies
One of the things I've noticed aging is I very rarely write programs for fun versus profit, i.e. my job. When I look at things like IoT, machine learning and AI, I don't feel the motivation to get involved. It's not an inability to learn as I'm often learning and incorporating new things in my work, but it's more that I've limited the scope of the learning to what is practical for me. I suppose it's like a doctor with a specialty they've practiced for 20 years. The newest things outside of your specialty are interesting, but you probably won't use them.