Why are you not yet retired? I can think of few strong reasons, but I would love to hear from you. (I started programming at 8, I’m 41 and I have no plans of stopping )
Not everything is great: the procession of silly methodologies, the endless train of obviously doomed technologies, and the recent obsession with social justice appearances. But the core of tech is still ripping good fun.
Sometimes too, I see comments from people frustrated with having to "work so hard". I'm sorry they have that burden, but for me, programming is not a negative in my life -- even though often times I do it many hours more than is actually asked of me. Sure it's got it's boring/frustrating times, alternatively it can be very difficult, rigorous, and taxing, but I doubt I'll ever completely put it down.
Retiring to millions may be true in theory for certain programmers, but certainly not true for all programmers.
Reality is often different for everyone. As the African proverb says: “all fingers are not equal” meaning the outcome of a specific situation can differ across people. For instance, what if s/he had a financially draining medical emergency, forcing them to rejoin the workforce?
And then what? Believe it or not, some people consider programming a blessing and fun. If it keeps you engaged, why not continue to get paid for it?
I'd love to spend months reverse engineering proprietary electronics and writing open source code / datasheets for them.
After 50+ years of structured work people forget how to be in charge of themselves.
And there's nothing wrong with that.
I mean I don’t hate my job but damn I’d just sit in front of the TV and go for walks if that was an option.
I learned python a few years ago and have experience with several other languages as well. Python is perfect for someone like myself. To me it is a thing of beauty.
I read a lot - history and biography mainly. Favorites: The Fatal Shore and Empire of the Autumn Moon. Travel 2-3 times a year. Been to Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, South America as well as all over North America. Favorite place? Singapore.
Walk 2 miles+ a day.
Am a top backgammon player on ZooEscape.
Been married 51 years today and been blessed with 3 great kids.
Not rich but comfortable. Always been a saver or what my sister calls a cheapskate.
Am definitely slowing down. Am more cranky. And think the world is going crazy. Other than that life is better than I expected it would be at this age.
The prospect of just sitting in front of TV and going for walks is horrifying. For short breaks, sure, that's really nice. For years? Horrifying.
Solving technical problems is vastly more satisfying than that.
It's like maths to a mathematician, physics to a physicist. Why would they ever stop, given freedom to carry on?
I would love to be able to retire for the freedom, but with that freedom I would want to build technology, much as I do now except I'd choose the things (and they would be much better things!)
(It might be that the kind of programming you do in your job is a very different thing though. I'm not excited by writing more business forms either. Programming is an extremely broad term these days.)
Can you acknowledge that solving technical problems for decades is just as horrifying to me? And that watching TV and doing nothing is extremely satisfying to me?
But now users are asking me if this is ok. Obviously it's extremely far from ok, if true, so I need to ask: is it true?
I'm curious though - do you think you'd be fine with only doing walks and TV for 40+ hours a week? Personally I got interested in computers and programming very early, and at first it was 100% a leisure activity. It stayed at roughly that level of exciting for me until probably 6 months to a year into being employed as a developer, but it's no longer the #1 thing I like to do when I'm not at work. My current situation is work with a side of typical relaxation (watch tv, browse the internet, etc.), but I expect when I eventually retire I'll start spending a bunch of leisure time on programming and general messing-with-computers stuff again.
I took 3 years off from working (lived frugally off savings) and that is basically all I did. Purposely avoided anything that would be considered “productive work.” I mean I read some books and rode my bicycle, too. But my time was pretty much just watching TV/movies and laying around.
Best time of my life by far.
I cringe when I tell someone about it and they are like, “oh but didn’t that get boring?”
Freedom to choose is what it's about.
I'm really glad you got to enjoy those 3 years.
That does sound like heaven. Watching TV all day does not.
Do you mean family like parents/relatives harping from a distance? If so, they’re just jealous and aren’t worth listening to. As long as you’re smart about your money and make a plan to get a job before you’re tapped out, go for it.
Of course, I'm completely happy to acknowledge that!
I know some programmers who were pretty hot, but one day they had enough and never wanted to go back into it. Good for them, hopefully they found something else they enjoyed.
What I was addressing before was:
You seemed to express skepticism that someone else finds programming something they would actually prefer to do, over retiring from the field, unless they are institutionalised or imprisoned, like some kind of sick creature.
So I added myself to the data, along with mathematicians, physicists etc. to support an argument some may relate to, to say it's not that unusual for people to actually love programming or other intellectual activities like that.
I should have included artists and writers. The motivation is a lot like it is for them: It feels innate, like an instinct, it just makes you miserable if you don't pursue it.
I assure you, if you could see the messy diversity in my life, you would not think of me as institutionalised, or particularly structured :-)
The idea that you only do things because it is your job suggests a limited life, I remember when I was working telling the others about all the trips and cruises I did on my time off. When I asked they what they did on vacation they always went to the same places year after year. I guess that is what they wanted.
Thats fun for the first week. The second week its depressing but you still do it. On the third week you will be picking up hobby projects and working on them just for fun.
For example, of you love rocket science and working on rockets, you're probably better off working for NASA or SpaceX.
Nothing really.
I guess what the parent was getting at was that if you are an employee at a point of your life when society expects you to be retired, then you will not be able to allocate your free time as you see fit. In other words, working for others past retirement means you never really retire enough to indulge in things you never had time for in your prime, like spending quality time with one’s spouse for instance [0].
[0] Google’s former highly-paid CFO decides to retire after working for nearly 30 years consecutively https://mashable.com/2015/03/10/googles-cfo-retires-memo/
In other words - one might want freedom, basically.
As for not helping someone - programming can be recreational, just for the sake of enjoyment.
I finish projects when they're for work. Or at least, I stay focused.
My own hobby projects are more fulfilling to me, but I often put them aside for long periods - sometimes years - because I don't need to finish them to get pleasure out of doing them, and it's much harder to stay motivated to finish the often very boring parts when I don't have to.
But it feels good to finish things up too. I can push myself to do that for side projects, but the time and energy it takes to get me motivated to do that when I don't have the external pressure to motivate me is much harder.
If I "retire" I'll probably have to do a startup again to have some of that pressure...