50-Year-old are you still willing to do programming?

"Massive, high-intensity programming?" I must admit, this is a young man's game. ”

No, it's a fool's game (mostly male, but not 100%). I am 55 years old and have been involved in programming since 1981, starting in 1973. One thing I really realize is that programming to death is worthwhile.

No, it's a fool's game (mostly male, but not 100%). I am 55 years old and have been involved in programming since 1981, starting in 1973. One thing I really realize is that programming to death is worthwhile.

If I'm 55 years old, do I have to do programming? My answer is: Yes. I still enjoy the challenges of programming, solving complex problems and finding the best solution. Every morning I browse a lot of Web sites related to technology and programming to see what new technology is going on. I know that if one day, when I no longer care about these latest developments, that is I do not want to be a programmer. Since my first day of programming, my morning course has not changed unless there are magazines, manuals and books to read, or occasional meetings to attend.

I remember a job in my first company, General Dynamics. There, I'm going to learn how to do technical support for the newly purchased IBM PC. It's not my main job, but it's something new and nobody knows what knowledge is needed, so I've read all the information I can find, including all the IBM product documentation. Soon IBM's technical support came along and instructed us how to configure these machines and how to connect the various product devices together. I don't really need to learn all these things, but they all seem to be very useful knowledge. Now, I'm still learning something new, because it's interesting--even if some knowledge doesn't seem to be needed.

If you no longer have a thirst for knowledge about the world of programming and are no longer curious about technology-related fields, then your programming career will not last. When I was in college, I knew a lot of people had a degree in computer science, but most of them did not make a code after graduation, they were not interested in programming, or they were no longer learning to program, and were eventually abandoned by the wheels of new technology. And I study in the university is the chemistry profession.

My research has changed over the years, like a werewolf in a werewolf movie (which is my nickname in high School).

Now, one of the most important things I've found is that you must not covet longer hours of work, but rather smarter jobs. As an older person, this means you can't work more than 20 hours a day, even if you can keep working for 20 hours a day, it's not necessarily the program you're writing. Is there really a limit to how many hours a day you should work to make a quality software? Maybe, as you get older, this time will slow down, but as long as you learn how to program smarter, your quality and efficiency will not decrease and you will need less coffee.

Today's programming environment and I have just entered the industry than the great changes occurred, now we have a variety of programming languages, development tools, development platform, development methods available for us to choose from. It is difficult for a person to have all of this knowledge, even if it is compressed into a narrow field, such as the knowledge of IBM PCs that I am learning. So it's important to choose wisely among the many options. One of my favorite movie dialogues was Indiana Jones and the Holy Grail, when the bad guy went to ashes and the old Knight said, "You picked the wrong one." There are so many glittering things to choose from, but only some are really useful.

Experience is an advantage that lets you know when to move forward and when to slow down. The advantage of being young is to be new to everything and never worry about failure. We can combine these two strengths with a different perspective, and I think of Steve Jobs when I was young, when he had all the right ideas to plan, but couldn't make them. And old Steve Jobs was able to stick to these ideas and shine them. From this point of view, the years itself is a resource, young to maintain a curiosity and aggressive, slowly with the age of growth, and then the experience and a long-term vision of integration, which you will no longer confused.

If you want to be a programmer at the age of 55, you will never be able to lose your desire to pursue more knowledge, more advanced knowledge, and more simplification of your work. Once you lose this enterprising edge, the fast-moving technology wheels will become more and more oppressive, until eventually you'll have to live on something bland.

When I was 24 years old and did my first professional programming job, I never thought about what it would be like 55 o'clock, but I knew then that I was definitely programming-related and not looking back.

Will there be programming in more than 30 years? I don't know. Would I be programmed at the age of 86? Maybe not, but I'd like to program if I can. By then, I should have been smart enough to finish a day's work in 30 minutes.

Or I told my robot assistant to help me do those things and go back to nap!