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Comment by mark_l_watson | Hacker News Reader

I liked that. I am am 68 and although I 'retired' last year (from managing a deep learning team at Capital One), I stay active. Currently I am writing a combined iOS and macOS app (so I needed to spin up on Swift and SwiftUI, and how to use built in support for building deep learning models, instead TensorFlow which is what I am used to). I recently published a book on the very cool Hy Lisp programming language (you can read it free at https://leanpub.com/hy-lisp-python).

I get inspiration from my father. He is 98 and has taught himself 3D animation and video editing, and keeps himself very busy creating videos for the international right to die organization. (He was a physicist and is still a member of the National Academy of Sciences.)

So, for all you young 50 year olds, I say to you: it is not over until it is over :-)

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This is a breath of fresh air. I was born the same year as the author so I'm nearing 45. I'm so glad to hear that you retired and then continued to work on software projects you love.

I adopted a lot of things earlier than OP, thanks to my Mom, who purchased my first computer, a used Tandy CoCo 64K when I was just 10 years old. Thanks Mom.

It's absolutely incredible to think that the age difference between you and the author of the comment you replied to is greater than the number of years I've been alive.

I had a similar moment this morning while reading a book to my son. I told him "You remember this book? Your grandmother got this book for you when you were 10 months old, less than half your current age."

And it just occurred to me that my son's entire lifetime is less than half the time I've been married to my wife. The time I've been married to my wife is less than half the time I've lived in the Bay Area. The time I've lived in the Bay Area is less than a third of my total lifetime.

We all live multiple lifetimes. Some moments just remind us of that more than others.

You'll really have your mind blown reading the history of the early earth then. For a couple hundred million years, there was no liquid water. A few hundred million years after that, single celled life appeared. It took yet another few hundred million years for there to be any oxygen in the atmosphere. Fast forward another 3500 million years for something resembling modern humans to appear, a few hundred thousand years ago. Recorded history is only about 5000 years. So, if you live to 100 years old, you will have been around for 2% of recorded history but only 0.000002% as long as the earth.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_evolutionary_h...

Why is that absolutely incredible?

The wording of the original author may have been imprecise, but I’m in a similar place so I’ll try to translate my feelings as well.

It is a certain form of awe, to realise that one’s life so far will likely just be a small fragment of the whole. It isn’t intuitive aside from mathematically — it is a thought that only at a certain age becomes apparent and then drifts off to be forgotten again.

Realising that the journey is so much longer, it both storms and calms the soul. The calm from the meditative “I still have time to become”, the storm from a similar “But I only have time to become”.

Beautiful clarification

Maybe it's a personality thing? When I retire I plan to put my computer and my cell phone in a box and then bury it in the ground.

When I was young I never quite understood why old fogies would spend so much time working on their roses and hanging out with their grand kids. Now I get it.

you should do what you love today, don't wait

I’m 37 and as such doesn’t qualify as old, but I recently got into the Blood Bowl hobby. I haven’t done miniatures since I was a little kid, but some of my real world friends picked it up and I was quick to jump on the wagon as I had been looking for a non-digital hobby.

Anyway, being 37 my purchasing power is obviously a lot greater than it was the last time I was into miniatures, and that has lead me down a rabbit hole of hobbyists who enjoy miniature war/board games (not really sure what to call them yet). A lot of these people are well into their 60ies, yet they attend weekly brawls at local libraries. They hold weekend tournaments. Have lively Facebook groups to organise their different leagues and everyone is welcome.

It’s really been inspiring to see that old age can be a lot different than what it’s been for my own family members.

Blood Bowl is outstanding. I used to play with friends in high school (I had a dark elf team) and still have my miniatures and board.

If you play PC games there is an equally excellent PC version, Blood Bowl 2.

Blood Bowl is a great game, I wish there was a mobile game version of it, it’d be nice to have a long term turn based game to play with friends during random downtime’s during the day.

Correspondence chess. With lichess it's never been easier to play online.

Yeah, I want that, but not chess :)

I prefer games that have a randomness element.

You can afford a 3d sla resin printer and paying artists to make custom designs.

Try underworlds ;)

My grandpa retired with a pension, and was well on the way to an early grave until they got a new house and he started building things. He ended up working a part time job for another 10-15 years until the big C got him. Most of the money went to savings or to supporting my uncle who didn’t grow up until he was thirty, and then lost his house to an electrical fire not of his creation.

I’ve just sort of resigned myself to the idea of working less when I “retire” and have been starting to more seriously engage in some hobbies so I have more “range” and thus more options for what that looks like.

I have been saying for years that what the world needs now is not more programmers but programmers with more varied backgrounds. Write me some software for model airplane meetups, volunteer management, seed swaps, or sewing instructions.

Salute to you. I wrote my first code the year the author of the article was born, on an HP-3000 using a teletype :). I'll be 60 next year, and currently work as a sr. devops engineer building infrastructure and toolchains on google cloud platform/GKE. It's a great gift to be able to do something you love to put food on the table, and to be able to keep doing it as long as the brain is up to the task.

May I ask what you did previously in your career, was it related, sys admin or similar, or did you move to devops more recently?

I'm getting close to 50 and I have to admit, I'm wondering what employment looks like after 50 for people in our industry.

I started professionally as a c++ programmer, and have worked in a few different languages, on a few different platforms since. This job is my first devops position and I wasn't actually looking for devops roles when it was offered to me. I was interviewing for a back end engineering position and the head of the devops/SRE group saw some things in my profile that he was looking for and reached out. Fwiw I'm almost through the "after 50" part and getting close to the "after 60" part and I haven't had a problem finding things to do. The key is to stay engaged and learning all the time.

great info thanks, happy to see that people like you, who are not afraid to learn new stuff and integrate that into their long experience is still valuated.

> I get inspiration from my father. He is 98 and has taught himself 3D animation and video editing, and keeps himself very busy creating videos for the international right to die organization.

Very inspiring to hear that he has taught himself 3D animation and video editing, but if I have the grace to live until 98 or longer and with my mind in order – as my own grandmother – I am 100% sure that working for the 'right to die' wouldn't get me up in the morning. But if it was to live bountifully and blissfully – as my own grandmother – I would leap, as gracefully a 98-year-old would leap, out of bed!

You never know.

In the same way that people who witness a lot of civil rights abuses might get into fighting for civil rights, a person that witness a lot of end of life suffering might be inclined to work on right to die issues.

FWIW: I got my second Master's degree at age 56, got Udacity MOOC nano-degree at 58, and am now developing deep learning apps. Keep on carrying on!

Great! :-) Curious: What was your second Master's degree in?

Thanks for your interest. My first was in Electrical Engineering (as was my BS) and then I went for Computer Science. I later did the Artificial Intelligence nano-degree at Udacity (MOOC). I continue to take online courses here and there.

Okay, intereresting!

Your book is great. Finally someone writes a book for Hy on top of some very great examples. I will purchase your book and work through it. Thanks a ton for your efforts, this book makes my day.

Thanks! I usually write on niche topics, but as long as I have some enthusiastic readers I will keep writing.

I am very biased in favor of Lisp languages, but I have been getting into Swift because: easier iOS and macOS development, exciting possibilities with TensorFlow in Swift, and except for not being a lazy language, it reminds me a little of Haskell development (another language I like).

I have material for updating my Hy and Common Lisp books and when I finish updating these two books (always free updates for my books on leanpub) in the next month or two, I might write a Swift book based on my experience developing my product (which is a combination of a tool for training the effective use of SPARQL with Knowledge Graphs, and a tool for browsing Knowledge Graphs). I will float this idea to people who follow me on Twitter (@mark_l_watson) to see if there might be interest.

That's so inspiring. Our father of 71 just started to learn programming. He does not have any programming background, however, I love his motivation and enthusiasm at his age. Something that is to admire, it's never too late when you have the right attitude.

The nice thing about being an academic economist is that it's not hard to find people older than 68 still doing quite complicated technical research. I'm older than the author of the post, but still somewhat young by academic standards.

Wow, this is so inspiring.

I’m a lot younger, but this is something I’m going to try to remember and keep in mind going forward.

My aim is to be creative and productive through my nineties, to the age of 100.

I'm 57, and am not treated will by the people here at Hacker News, who frequently "ok boomer" me. I'm glad to see I'm not the only active "senior" around.

I still write code every day. In C++/CUDA and Erlang.

Could you link to the organization? I'm extremely thankful for what https://www.deathwithdignity.org did in Oregon.

You could also take inspiration from all the age 70+ candidates interviewing for the most important job in the world :-)

To me, the most important job in the world is my bus driver.

I’m just using the colloquialism “most important job” for POTUS

I love this. Making videos for right to die organization. Wow! That’s making a difference until the end.

I’m gonna bookmark this.

If you're interested, there are some Swift Tensorflow tools, lead by a few people, including Chris Lattner

https://www.tensorflow.org/swift/

Chris Lattner is now at SiFive, FWIW.

Very cool about your dad. My grandpa is 93 and uses his iPad all day to watch YouTube and post on Facebook. He's a little hooked. :)

you are such an inspiration sir!

Legend

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