The path to software: we also talk about "programmers are not over 30 years old"

An article Excerpted from Qiu suo GE has a thorough analysis, which is more in-depth than the extensive articles about "programmers are young, this article analyzes the situation of the IT industry in China, the reasons why the "programmer is not over 30 years old" viewpoint is generated, and the mistakes of this viewpoint. This is an article that is both positive and rational. I like it (I don't like the so-called spam-up articles or passive frustrating articles ). The original text is as follows:

The path to software: we also talk about "programmers are not over 30 years old"

We always constantly discuss in forums, blogs, newspapers, and magazines about whether programmers can do anything after the age of 30 or what programmers can do after the age of 30. This discussion is too much. It seems that the students who study computer at school are not out of school and begin to seriously think about what they should do after they are 30 years old.

This opinion has a significant impact on the entire industry. However, it seems that I cannot find a sufficient argument for the argument "cannot be done after 30. On the contrary, I think programmers can be at least fifty years old. First of all, I declare that I have already been a programmer, so the following discussion can be said to be my personal experience.

What I don't understand first is: Do programmers need high capabilities? After the age of 30, will it be unable to do so?

What capabilities do programmers need?

I have been engaged in this profession for 10 years. I feel that the programmer profession is essentially different from other professions. In general, the following capabilities or qualities are required for me:

Careful: This is actually a requirement of most industries. Programmers may have higher requirements than some industries. A Negligence in coding may cause program errors, resulting in losses.

Combat pressure: The stress mainly comes from coding, projects, or software products on time. However, this pressure is not exclusive to programmers. In this age of fierce competition, how many industries are not under such pressure?

Diligence: this is a relatively unique requirement of programmers. Technology updates in the IT industry are always frequent. Therefore, you must constantly learn new things. However, doctors are also an industry that requires continuous learning. Therefore, it cannot be said that continuous learning is a completely unique requirement.

Logical Thinking: No doubt, programming is a mental activity that relies primarily on logical thinking. However, from my 10 years of programming experience, the logic thinking skills required by programmers should not be a problem for those who have passed high school mathematical training.

Is thirty years old a limit for these capabilities?

"Is it difficult for software developers to be over 40 years old?

What are the limits of physical endurance? First, is the 30 age physically limited? I believe that this is impossible. Gu yuyun, "30 and stand up", just now "and stand up" will not be able to withstand the "meticulous", "Confrontation pressure" in the body? If so, the vast majority of social work should set the standard of 30-year-old retirement.

What are the limits of mental endurance? So, is the 30-year-old not suitable for mental stress caused by the programmer's career? In fact, the age of 30 has nothing to do with the ability to withstand the pressure, whether it can withstand the pressure, and the ability of each person to withstand the pressure. If a person is 25 years old and can withstand this pressure, it is basically impossible to say that the person is 30 years old. If you are over 30 years old, you will not be able to afford it. The army commander must be a person under 30 years old.

What are the limits of logical thinking capabilities? What programmers need is logical thinking. The 30-year-old is the time when logical thinking is well developed, so this is not a boundary.

Learning Capability boundaries? The learning ability does not have a limit. The ancient saying is that modern people have good nutrition and excellent learning conditions. As long as they are willing to learn, there is no problem with lifelong learning.

In China's IT industry, why is it so popular that "programmers are only 30 years old? I think the history of the IT industry is one of the reasons. In addition, the special social culture in China has also contributed to this.

The history of the industry gave birth to "programmers but 30"

In fact, the so-called "programmers are not more than 30" is not the limit of the 30-year-old, this statement is more similar to a value orientation-it is not a programmer who is 30 years old, but a "not willing to be a programmer after 30 years old ". This is indeed a special value orientation only available in the IT industry. We do not seem to have heard of such comments as "Civil Servant clerk is less than 30", "production line worker is less than 30", and "military sergeant is less than 30. I personally feel that such value orientation is not unrelated to the development history of the IT industry.

From state-owned enterprises to foreign companies: where to go

I think this is mainly due to the IT trend in 1990s and the effect of overnight enrichment. The network bubble economy at the end of 1990s was a feast of money. Anything that is tied to it with a new concept may be supported by everyone in a very short time. Everyone is cheering for the arrival of the knowledge economy-the rise of the economy can be sustained infinitely, and a large amount of money can be integrated simply by a so-called "concept" without any foundation. In this context, countless people get rich overnight (of course, all they spend is not their own money, but the money of investors who are crazy about pursuing it ). In this context, many people in the IT industry want to be rich one day and one night. The rise of the IT billionaire in this age is mostly 20-30 years old, which sets a benchmark. It gives people a strong boost and makes people feel that if they are 30 years old, they have not yet entered the ranks of richest people, in this industry, it is mixed. Programmers cannot become rich people. I think this is a big background of the saying that "programmers are not more than 30. In an industry where most rich people (including excellent programmers who have successfully started their own business) are so young, it is not surprising to say that "programmers are only 30.

However, as time passes, the IT industry has now become a normal and gradually mature industry. The chance of getting rich overnight has been greatly reduced. We will use the comments "programmers are not more than 30" to stimulate practitioners.

Social Culture encourages "programmers but 30"

At present, the world has mixed comments on China, but no one acknowledges that China is in a rapidly changing society. It took 20 years to walk the journey of the industrialized countries in 100. In such a drastic change, the social class is constantly changing and restructured, and it is doomed that the Chinese will witness the wealth of several people and the "success" of several people ". Moreover, the society is so keen to publicize the stories of successful people, and pays attention to the efforts and costs they have made before their success, and objectively reveal what conditions they have and what risks they have. This makes all Chinese people almost share the dream of "making a fortune", and the whole society is in an impetuous and uneasy situation. In such a social environment, if you are in another IT industry where young people are constantly getting richer, I hope that you will not be a programmer after the age of 30 (the following line is below: it is indeed the dream of most people to make more money than programmers.

The idea of "no longer programmers after the age of 30" is further strengthened by the bureaucracy. China has a long history of feudal society. In our ancient society, "being an official" is the highest ideal of life for any rational person. Although such an idea has been weakened to the modern era-after all, modern people have more choices to realize their own life values-however, they are still generally inclined to be "officers" (or managers ), instead of being a "Soldier" (or producer ). When it comes to programmers, it is represented as "programmers are only 30". Why? After the age of 30, I am still working as a programmer, indicating that my hope for becoming a "manager" is even lower and the increase is slow. The general opinion is that you cannot keep doing technology.

Are there any prospects for technology?

The idea of "not always doing technology" is also a unique phenomenon in Chinese society. We have a tradition of "strong skill and light skill" and "strong morality and light skill. Confucius said (I cannot remember the original words), "If a man is addicted to specific skills, then he will not be able to quit. Therefore, for a person with interest, the ideal state should be no skill, and all the thoughts are used to ponder over people." In my opinion, this is almost one of the biggest bad habits of traditional culture. As we all know, the German country has been an engineer country since it entered the industrialized society. In addition, there are many vocational schools in Germany and many professional and skilled personnel have been trained. It is such a population structure and engineer culture that laid the role of Germany in an industrialized society.

Chinese people also pay more attention to "Tao" and despise "techniques". That is to say, they like to discuss things extensively at the abstract level and feel that they have found the basic principles of things almost the same, I am not willing to go deep into the details of various applications, because it is a "skill" level problem and the general feeling is that the level is lower. Under the influence of such a culture, it is not so strange to hope that you can get out of the shackles of "technique" and enter the "Tao" level as soon as possible (30 years old.

In short, I don't think it really makes sense to say that "programmers are nothing more than 30", but it is reflected in our rapidly changing society, in the ever-emerging IT industry of cutting-edge richest people, in our Government-based and technology-intensive society, we have a magnified desire to be an official, it is a saying of striving for wealth.

At least 50 years old!

Someone may say, "How long can a programmer do as you think ?" I think the answer is simple: How long can it take. "What ?! What do you mean ?" I don't know whether I can work as a programmer at the age of 60, but according to my own situation, combined with the current social development trend, I feel that it is not a problem to do it at least until I am 50. The reasons are as follows:

1) China's labor force is gradually in short supply. In the next 20 to 30 years, Chinese society will gradually enter the age of aging. Looking at the residents of the same age as me, I often think that the most developed industry in some Chinese communities in 40 years must be elder care. I have seen a documentary about the aging of agricultural workers in Japan in NHK. In a famous agricultural area in Japan, the average age of farmers is 72, and many people aged 80 are still working, the biggest headache for the president of the local agricultural society is how to persuade everyone to increase production because the old lady cannot do it, and the enthusiasm for production is not high. Although this is a situation in Japanese agriculture, the pressure on China's aging population is the same in the future. Our current generation wants to retire at the age of 50, I am afraid it is impossible-a small number of young people cannot afford a huge pension. Maybe we are doomed to do it to 70 years old. When we reach the age of 50, we may still belong to the "population". At that time, we thought it was a joke that we thought we could not be a programmer at the age of 30.

2) The Chinese software industry is gradually being standardized. One important reason why we used to think that programmers are hard and hard to work is that they work too much overtime and often work overtime when they work on projects. Not to mention whether the software is really tired and unique-there is a common phenomenon of working overtime in all sectors of society (this is not to say that working overtime is reasonable, it's just about working overtime in the software industry.)-simply speaking, software programmers in this industry are gradually becoming more standardized. At least Chinese software enterprises begin to recognize standardized management rather than small workshops. At least Chinese software enterprises recognize the importance of the process (cmme ). Moreover, the Chinese software industry has begun to recognize that compiling 5000 lines of programs per day may not be highly efficient, but may not be a good thing. One day,-lines of programs are prepared with quality and quantity, it is already a very good productivity. With the Joint Understanding of standardized management and productivity, the labor intensity of the programmer industry has actually been reduced a lot. The phenomenon of relying on physical strength to eat youthful meals will gradually become a thing of the past.

3) China's intellectual property protection is improving. Although the improvement ratio is limited-the piracy rate drops by about 10% every year, at least we can expect that intellectual property rights will be well protected in the next 20-30 years. Why does this also contribute to the employment of senior programmers? Of course. In the future, when the protection of intellectual property rights is improved, the cost of using new technologies will be greatly increased. Aren't we always joke about the use of old technologies by the Japanese? I don't know how to write software projects using vc6.0 and VB6.0. Why? Low Cost. These development tools are low in price and mature in development technology. We will also have such a day. Therefore, it is not only the talent who master the latest technology that has a way out. With the improvement of intellectual property protection, Chinese senior programmers can also use old technologies to earn money, maybe I still earn more, because there will be fewer people with old technologies.

4) Chinese society needs a large number of specialized technical talents rather than a large number of middle-level managers (of course, competent senior managers always need and are scarce ). Isn't it always said that programming is "blue-collar software? Looking at the trend of industry development in the world, blue-collar workers are sweet. If you are a skilled fitter, you may not earn less money than middle-level managers. Turning over the news about the recent downsizing of large companies, we will also find that the downsizing is mainly for employees in management positions. Why? In the end, people still need to work. The same is true for the software industry. Excellent programmers are lacking at any time. Although there are few people with peace of mind in China's current social atmosphere, as the society matures, the chances of getting rich overnight will be greatly reduced, if you have a skill to make a living, it may be the fate of most people. In the past 10 years, I have seen too many people give up on technology, constantly seeing new people take over from veterans, and constantly seeing the process of training new people, leaving and retraining new people. For this reason, we feel that the entire industry will always be new. Think about it. In such an environment, if you hone yourself into a really good programmer and want to be 30 years old, you will not do it. Society will not allow you to do it, at least until 50 years old!