Haha! I had similar advice from my Grandfather in the late 70s who predicted that computers will be writing all their own programs in the near future and so the job prospects for working in the field would be quite poor.
On Sunday, 14 April 2013 09:52:46 UTC+1, Korny wrote: > > I've been forgetting my car keys consistently for the last 20 years - but > now I'm in my mid 40s it's easy to blame it on ageing :-) I've been coding > for longer than I've been losing car keys, and I can't say I've noticed a > lot of decline. > > As for the lack of grey beards at conferences (mentioned elsewhere) - some > of that is probably just demographics. When I studied computer science it > was an obscure niche subject, with quite a small intake - indeed, I > enrolled in a double degree of computer science + engineering, as my father > advised me that "computers might be a bit of a flash in the pan - it's > worth doing engineering as well to guarantee yourself a career" :) > > - Korny > On 14 Apr 2013 03:58, "Softaddicts" <[email protected]<javascript:>> > wrote: > >> My point is not about unproductive older programmers, it's more an >> indication >> of what one should seek to maintain his programming ability over time. >> >> BTWY, I am 51 and I do not consider myself unproductive, I cheated, I >> switched >> to Clojure.... an adaptive move to keep having fun and free myself from a >> myriad >> of worthless details. >> >> I disagree with your first statement, when you look at a task requirement >> in terms of >> cognitive abilities, you can get a very good idea were aging may have an >> effect. >> >> Forgetting where you left your car keys is directly related to working >> memory failing >> especially if you left the 2 mns ago on the kitchen table. This behavior >> is very common >> past a certain age. >> >> Context switchings are purging your working memory partially or entirely >> and >> it takes longer to get back in the original context as you age. This is >> also commonly >> seen as people age "what was I doing 10 mns ago ?" >> >> All the other issues described by your reference also implies the impact >> of aging >> on working memory, difficulty of trimming details to ease decision >> making, ... >> >> Frankly, using civil servants as a reference vs programmers is far >> fetched except >> if you restrict your population to people fulfilling equivalent duties. >> >> We are not talking about pushing a pen on a piece of paper here or >> shuffling through >> paper files here. Dealing with code involves a myriad of details not >> supported >> by not much than the thoughts running around in our working memory and >> whatever it fetches from your acquired knowledge in long term memory. >> >> Working memory is the main component being stressed when coding. This is >> were you assemble these things to spit put code. Souvenirs or ideas do >> not translate to >> code by themselves. >> >> Btwy, the reference you posted has been printed in 2007, it's a bit old >> compared to what >> I found online. >> >> Luc P. >> > >> > On Apr 12, 2013, at 1:18 PM, Softaddicts >> > <[email protected]<javascript:>> >> wrote: >> > >> > > The average career length of a programmer is 8 years in the US (2003 >> survey) and >> > > the main reason invoked by those that left is their perceived lack of >> productivity. >> > >> > TL;DR: Opinions about unproductive older programmers is ahead of the >> science. >> > >> > -- >> > >> > I gave - or was supposed to give - a keynote on "Cheating Decline: How >> to program well for a really long time". I actually only had two slides on >> the topic because I concluded, after a fair amount of reading, that there's >> really no solid evidence that there is a meaningful decline over a normal >> working life. (Same goes for mathematicians, by the way, despite G. H. >> Hardy calling math a "young man's game".) >> > >> > Various cognitive abilities do decline, including the ones you >> mentioned, but the declines are small for younger old people. For example, >> the Whitehall II longitudinal study of British civil servants would lead a >> 45 year old to expect a bit less than 4% decline in "reasoning" (timed >> tests of pattern matching, induction, etc.) over the next decade. Somewhat >> less than that for the "memory" category. Then the next decade would show >> about 5% decline. It's not until 65-70 that a decade shows as much as a 10% >> decline. >> > >> > From this, I do *not* conclude the unproductive older programmer is a >> myth. The tests are simple, they disallow interactions between abilities >> that might matter for more complex tasks, etc. As a pessimist, and someone >> who thinks he has every neurological symptom he ever reads about, I'm >> inclined to think there is meaningful decline - that's why I chose the >> topic for my talk: to see if I could find something useful to me. >> > >> > (The second of two slides was my conclusion that the evidence for >> anything being able to slow down or reverse decline is too weak to suggest >> anything other than what you should already be doing to be healthy in >> general. That weakness applies to brain exercise web sites, unless your >> goal is to get better at the narrow tasks they have you practice. The thing >> you want, "far transfer" to complex tasks, hasn't been demonstrated.) >> > >> > For those who want to fret over symptoms, here are some: >> > >> > What gets better with age: >> > * vocabulary (though recall may be slower) >> > * narrative ability >> > >> > What stays the same: >> > * sustained attention (vigilance over time) >> > * knowledge of facts >> > * knowledge of how to do something >> > >> > (Some of) What gets worse: >> > * divided attention: ability to follow a TV program and a conversation >> at the same time. >> > * task switching (including at fine granularity) >> > * episodic memory ("Where did I park my car?" "Which tab has the test >> file?") >> > * choice overload: older people are disproportionately hampered by >> having too many choices. (As a result, they may fail to seek out relevant >> information. Also: oldsters are more liable to defer making a choice.) >> > * the tying of facts to their context. (So, for example, long-known >> facts may seem to be relevant when actually inappropriate in context. New >> facts are possibly stored more absolutely than you'd want, without the >> relevant context like "how did I learn this?") >> > >> > A decent summary that's not behind a paywall is "Changes in Cognitive >> Function in Human Aging" http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK3885/ >> > >> > -------- >> > Looking for employment as a Clojure programmer >> > Latest book: /Functional Programming for the Object-Oriented Programmer/ >> > https://leanpub.com/fp-oo >> > >> > -- >> > -- >> > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google >> > Groups "Clojure" group. >> > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]<javascript:> >> > Note that posts from new members are moderated - please be patient with >> your first post. >> > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to >> > [email protected] <javascript:> >> > For more options, visit this group at >> > http://groups.google.com/group/clojure?hl=en >> > --- >> > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google >> Groups "Clojure" group. >> > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send >> an email to [email protected] <javascript:>. >> > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. >> > >> > >> > >> -- >> Softaddicts<[email protected] <javascript:>> sent by ibisMail >> from my ipad! >> >> -- >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google >> Groups "Clojure" group. >> To post to this group, send email to [email protected]<javascript:> >> Note that posts from new members are moderated - please be patient with >> your first post. >> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to >> [email protected] <javascript:> >> For more options, visit this group at >> http://groups.google.com/group/clojure?hl=en >> --- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "Clojure" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to [email protected] <javascript:>. >> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. >> >> >> -- -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Clojure" group. 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