This reminds me of an interesting event that occurred in my C++ class. During one of the assignments I looked at a peers code. I became convinced that the code was wrong. His code looked a little like this:

  bool operator<(.., ..)
  {
    return operator<(.., ..);
  }

He ran the code and it worked. I was confused.

Another student saw the teacher pass him and copied his implementation. His code didn't work. It gave the stack overflow error that I was expecting.

It turned out that the reason the guy had his code work in the first place was because it was never included in the program. He had put the code in his C++ file, but forgot to include it in his header. When the program compiled, it never knew his code existed.

He's a freelancer that just became a new parent :p

For many or most programmers, the "transition into management" is a major career change from something they love and are good at to something they don't enjoy and aren't very good at. However, we're all assumed to be following that track because we're supposed to hunger after money and prestige in the eyes of society at large. This morning I interviewed a woman for a technical position (same job as me) who got her master's degree when I was in third grade. What's wrong with that?

The " transition into management" is one of my biggest career related fears. Let me code please :)

Who says I only know C? I've been learning and using new languages for over 30 years; I won't bore you with a list. (Smalltalk is one of my favorites, but I'll never ship a product in it. But I know a lot about dynamic language implementation).

C just happens to be the right choice for most of my projects today (I half seriously proposed FORTH for one before my cow-orkers threatened me with a dunking).

Let's make a distinction between Management as an HR function (writing reviews, dealing with org issues, fighting for equipment and office supplies) and Senior Geek Nirvana (design work, heavy lifting in code and debugging / shipping a product). I tried Management for a while, and it stunk.

Right now I'm in a great position as a senior technical guy (I hesitate to say "Architect" because most of the people I know with that title are self-appointed blowhards) who gets to decide how to do stuff. I lean on managers ("we need some chairs, and an oscilloscope") and project management (for setting up meetings, tracking bugs, etc.), and I get to write a ton of docs and code. It's terrific fun.

I'm living proof that you can be writing in C and not be a sour, dried-up dinosaur in the back corner of a lab somewhere.

Sadly, all the assembler I know is from fighting Core Wars.

Jesus, you're reading a lot into this one comment! For all you know kabdib could be Ken Thompson and his manager could be Larry Page.

He's manager doesn't get to program all day though :P As long as it's a company in which compensation isn't determined arbitrarily by position in hierarchy it's a great thing.