clifanatic (u/clifanatic)

clifanatic commented on Show HN: Hire an Oldster tryoldster.com/... · Posted by u/adamqureshi

77yy77yy · 9 years ago

You are only as old as you believe you are. I'm 42 and won't trade spot with any 20-something for a job. The knowledge and experience I have today, most 20-something would love to have but.. they have to live some 20 years to now gain.

WTG putting this message together, good luck!

clifanatic · 9 years ago

> You are only as old as you believe you are.

Well, I'm 42 and I believe I'm 20... until I spend any time hanging around 20 year olds.

clifanatic commented on The Idea of Lisp dev.to/ericnormand/the-id... · Posted by u/rbanffy

mroll · 9 years ago

Nice article. Check out Paul graham's The Roots of Lisp for a similar exploration in which he shows how to build the metacircular interpreter.

> John McCarthy wrote 6 easy things in machine code

It was actually Steve Russel, McCarthy's grad student, who had the idea of writing McCarthy's eval function in machine code.

clifanatic · 9 years ago

> It was actually Steve Russel

I seem to recall reading that McCarthy was actually surprised to discover that Lisp _could_ be run by a real computer; he intended it to be a completely theoretical tool.

clifanatic commented on Is Software Development Really a Dead-End Job After 35-40? dzone.com/articles/is-sof... · Posted by u/kellet

Jemmeh · 9 years ago

When I look at software dev career boards most of the jobs are for senior roles. Look at Stack Overflow Careers and Glassdoor, just search "junior" then search "senior". I searched several major cities and they all had far more senior roles than junior/entry.

clifanatic · 9 years ago

> most of the jobs are for senior roles.

They mean 3-5 years.

clifanatic commented on Is Software Development Really a Dead-End Job After 35-40? dzone.com/articles/is-sof... · Posted by u/kellet

mikestew · 9 years ago

Hi, kids! Oldster here. Y'all really need to quit with the "oh, $DEITY, I'm looking at the wrong end of 40 and I'll never work again!" Yes, you will. Yeah, give up that dream of game development (which you should have done anyway, regardless of age). Some brah with his half-assed "Uber for..." won't hire you, sure. But there are plenty of places that would love to have someone that comes in before noon, does the work that needs to be done, and does solid work, and doesn't spend all day at the foosball table.

It depends a lot on how one defines "dead end", too. You have steady work, it pays six figures, but it's a CRUD app? Yeah, go whine to the guy in Appalachia or Detroit. Let me tell you about "dead end": one factory in town, there are only so many management positions to go around, and when that factory closes down you're screwed because your skills don't transfer so well that you'll just pick and move to Seattle where the jobs are. That's a dead end: you're going nowhere.

FoxPro dev and not finding work? That's your own fault. Software dev is a dead end only if you insist on turning down that cul-de-sac, turning off the car, and throwing the keys into a grassy field.

(As a sidenote, the author just comes across as whiny because he's not treated as the special snowflake he really is. If you're so insulted by being asked to do FizzBuzz, then you ought to be able to knock it out in Brainfuck if required. But maybe you can't, eh, Mr. Hotshot?)

clifanatic · 9 years ago

I really don’t think that’s what he’s saying, and if at least some of this doesn’t resonate with you, you’ve never looked for (programming) work after 40. The problem is that programming is, by it’s nature, “strange” work. In every other job, you perform some function for a long time, learn all the ins and outs of it, and then move on to manage other people who are performing that function: break their work down into tasks, assign different people to different tasks based on skill sets, suggest timeframes, etc.. That’s true from sandwich making up to neurosurgery. Programming work seems to defy that natural progression. I’ve been doing this for 25 years now, and I’m no better at breaking software development projects down into discrete tasks for _other people_ to carry out than I was when I started - and I’ve never met nor worked with anybody else who could, or even pretended they could. So we have this odd career where you start out as a programmer, and you stay a programmer until you retire. Couple that with the outsiders expectation that programming is getting easier when the reality is that the opposite is true, you have a _lot_ of people with a very low opinion of programmers as professionals - i.e. if you were actually any good, you wouldn’t have to be doing this any more.

clifanatic commented on Is Software Development Really a Dead-End Job After 35-40? dzone.com/articles/is-sof... · Posted by u/kellet

earcaraxe · 9 years ago

"There were also a couple of companies that assigned me coding tests where they asked me to “print a ladder” and “find repeating numbers.” I rejected those tests not because of arrogance but because my skills were beyond what they thought is needed from the role. And yes, the roles were for a Software Architect. However, instead of testing my skills in architecture and logic, I had to print a ladder on the screen."

This is arrogance. In my experience, most companies throw simple tests even at people applying for higher positions for several reasons:

1. It very quickly sorts out people who lie on their resume

2. You can tell a lot about a person's skill level by how they answer even a simple coding assignment - how are functions and variables named, does it take in args, what style is the commenting, does it do error handling, input validation, which language features are used to solve it etc, etc?

clifanatic · 9 years ago

Yeah, I've never really understood being _offended_ by being asked to do something relatively simple (and honestly, those are actually pretty good problems). I might consider it a little amusing if somebody asked me to write FizzBuzz or something really basic, but I would shrug my shoulders and do it.

clifanatic commented on My Priorities for the Next Four Years schneier.com/blog/archive... · Posted by u/r721

tomp · 9 years ago

I'm not sure I agree with this. Certainly most of these problems (surveilance, assaults on various liberties, etc.) were started/ramped up under W. Bush, but most of them were greately enhanced during Obama, so I have no reason to assume that Hillary might be any better (except better at PR/propaganda, of course).

clifanatic · 9 years ago

> were started/ramped up under W. Bush

Assault on privacy and massive surveillance started as soon as the internet became a household word - which actually happened under Bill Clinton.

clifanatic commented on Experts, True Believers and Test-Driven Development: how advice becomes a religion codewithoutrules.com/2016... · Posted by u/itamarst

clifanatic · 9 years ago

I think a lot of this religious behavior stems from an underlying belief, mostly by people who've never tried it themselves, that programming _must be_ easy and anything that makes it appear hard (and especially slow) means that somebody is making a mistake somewhere. So they go looking for a silver bullet, and the latest fad seems to fit the bill.