Welcome to HN and for making this place more magical by your presence. Have seen other very senior programmers here over the years. Paul Lutus comes to mind now[1].

One question: Do you go through a mid life crisis in programming in your 40s/50s?

My story (just felt like sharing): I am in my 40s and have been programming for 30 years (I first wrote in Fortran in my Engineering College, 1st semester). Later professionally coded in C++ for around 10 years (and still keep coming back to it, as needed). Java for 10 years. Golang for 7 years. And Python for last 2-3 years. And there were other languages like Visual basic (late 90s). A lot of Unix shell scripting. I still think, I am at my best. But do have occasional self doubts. The main difference from younger days, which is perceptible to me, is the need for eye glasses, and needing slightly bigger fonts on occasions (HN is perfect that way).

I teach/guide my elder son, in programming, who just turned 20, and doing well as a programmer - did half of K&R C chapters and decent in algorithmic programming. Spent few months at Codeforces website and reached specialist level (Next level is Expert, which is generally considered respectable by any standard). And he also likely lurks on HN. :)

So now, when I see your message, it only makes me happy, that HN has likely at least 3 generation of programmers if not more.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=lutusp

Edit: typo