I landed a new job last year at the age of 59. The new role has required me to learn a new system and programming language, and skill up on Python. I'm in the UK. My trick was to ditch the agencies, and target employers directly. Exception that proves the rule? Maybe.

What do you mean? REXX *was*? It still is, although rarely seen outside IBM nowadays. There are free interpreters available for Windows and Linux. Even though REXX is still around, I will admit it is now on the wane, as Python can do everything REXX can do, and so much more, and Python code can be incredibly compact. I used it most back in my days at IBM (1984-1993), and sporadically since then. It is a language well suited to mainframe scripting, and its integration into XEDIT and LEXX (remember that editor, anyone?) on VM made these editors the most powerful I have ever used to this day. REXX transformed mainframe scripting, but it is of its time, and that time has passed for most of us. Still, it is a great language to work with, and I will always have feelings of affection for it.

If you insist on using a generic text editor for your Python coding, mate, more fool you! Use an IDE. I use (and love) PyCharm Community Edition. It's a free download, takes care of all your indentation woes, and flags anything even remotely non-kosher to keep you honest.

I recently started working with Python. The IDE I use highlights every potential typo and stylistic error as I type. A variable name like Lenght would be flagged immediately, even though it is syntactically legal. My goal when coding with the IDE is zero flaggings of code. In the long run it is worth it.

Well, I worked in Miami for nine years, and not once did I see one of my Cuban or Mexican colleagues code anything like this:

// Comment out if not using the Spanish version of the compiler
// Por favor comente si no esta utilizando la version espannol del compilador

entero publico Longidut
{
obtener { devolve ese.Longidut; }
}

This sort of thing is just a classic example of a programmer who is just too lazy to correct the property name where it is used. Much easier to take the easy way out and keep the property name misspelled. We had a programmer like this on a COBOL project. 15 years after he was fired, we are still living with the sh*tty code he wrote. There is no bandwidth in my team to rip it all out and replace it, so I have imposed a policy of "replace, don't fix" whenever we run into an issue with one of this guy's modules. Any developer on my team who tries to get away with this kind of stuff now gets dealt with abruptly. There is no excuse for it.

Having tried W8 Beta, I have decided that my path to Windows NINE is via openSuSe and/or Ubuntu!

That's what you get for using Microsoft, man. Try Linux for size... getList() {ls -1 2>/dev/null | paste -d\; -s -} myListOfFiles=$(getList) Failing that, let me introduce you to my friend who was eventually fired a decade ago because of the quality of his work. We are still living with the legacy of his bad code!

try { No, I'm English, but I lived in Miami for 9 years. You would not believe the time I had finding decent, safe and practical cars with clutches while I was living there. The last car I bought (2005 Toyota RAV4) was a manual, but no dealership in Miami had one. I ended up driving over 40 miles to a dealer in the next county to take a test drive. It was worth it in the end. That car was a very good fit for me. Good thing I don't care about the colour and trim levels on a car, as one clutch = no choice. I refused to have an automatic while I was living there, and I don't drive one now I am back living in the UK. } catch (OffTopicException e) { Anyway... } finally { Since many of the subscribers are American, I wrote for an American audience. However, despite the bulk of my experience of American life being that of a Miami resident, I posted in English only. }

Don't ever knock vi! Even in a world where everyone drives automatics, I still insist on pumping a clutch pedal! I use vi every time I work on a COBOL source file. And I am not kidding! That is my day job! Seriously though. vi is my universal IDE on UNIX/Linux for any type of code. On Windows, Textpad is my best friend for text editing. VS for .NET of course. HateML for my PHP/HTML work. PLEdit32 for PL/SQL coding. PowerGUI for Powershell. Oh, and let's not forget the TSO editor for the JCL side of my job. Notepad never gets a look-in. I still miss LPEX (OS/2) and LEXX (IBM VM) though. Anyone remember those? They had a big feature that I DO miss, namely that they could be scripted in EXEC or REXX. Horses for courses, eh?

Sitting about a mile from where I am right now in Manchester, in front of a (then) 15yo 405-line VHF telly, watching washed out black and white pictures, having been woken up specially at 3am (UK time) by my parents to watch it as it happened. James Burke was the commentator, and I recall not wanting to stay up to watch the action replay 3 hours later! I was 8 years old in 1969. However, the TV aerial was on the roof, not sitting on top of the set. You young'uns will never know what you missed - aye!

Excuse me, I'm only 49!!! Bloody cheek!!! In C-speak, it's a union of a string and two arrays. (I learned C before I learned COBOL.) We all like to knock COBOL (not invented this year!), but we shouldn't. It does a more than adequate job for most business-related data crunching, and is way easier to learn and use than .NET or Java, even if it does lack a few nice features, like OO, terseness, data hiding...

BSc Mathematics - 1983. Only computing component was 3 days of FORTRAN with punch cards (come back, vi, all is forgiven). Really got into computers 1983/4, while on a disastrous teacher training course. Joined IBM after the course, and didn't look back. I do not understand why people feel it necessary to learn programming on a degree course. Any intelligent and logically minded person can learn programming. In any case, in a profession that is as rapidly changing as ours, it is these personal qualities and a commitment to continual learning and development that really matter, not academic qualifications. I sympathise though. I was pulled off a Java system to return to work on an old COBOL/UNIX system because my employer could not find anyone else to hire to support it. So I am fighting back by pushing an aggressive agenda of modernisation of the app in question! And it is working. And both the users and the IT infrastructure people are delighted! Very few jobs involve doing exactly what it says on the tin. Make the best of where you are at, network, be a geek, learn a lot, and get yourself ready for your next position. And don't be afraid to learn skills you can use, even if they seem a little dated. Not every employer has the resources or need to use the latest technologies.

I do too. But only if I want to save it as a draft.

You're typing an email and you press Escape then: - you press W to go to the next word... - you press $ to go to the end of the line... - you press x multiple times to delete that little mistake you just made... And last but not least... Your spell check keyboard shortcut is :w:ksh -n % It's not just .NET that's addictive, you know. :-D

I use Textpad to edit files on Windows. As for UNIX files, why not leave them on the UNIX box and edit with vi? If you have to ship a text file between UNIX and Windows, use ASCII mode with ftp. Then you can kiss your record end worries goodbye.