Joel Spolsky: Don't Leave The Industry (You Whining Emo Girl)

I've been doing this for about 4 years. I'd program at work, and then I'd come home and read books on programming, architecture, etc. When I didn't feel like that, I'd be learning a new language. When I didn't feel like doing that, I'd be writing some software to do this or that.

I want to continue to get better as much as ever, but now most of what I see, I've already seen. New things to learn come by less frequently than they did before. It's not that people in their 40's and 50's give up and just coast, it's that it's a case of diminishing returns.

Once you know a decent amount of languages, you see the commonalities and the point of it begins to fade, and how many books can you read on OOP or functional programming? Good coding style? Project management? When you're at the phase when every sentence in the book is a worthwhile lesson it's easy to learn fast. When lessons come through slow experience, like lessons from maintaining a project for 15 years, things go more slowly.

Ageism is rampant in the IT industry. Can you blame people for migrating to "safe" jobs when they have families to support?

I've often thought, if I ever start a company, I'm going to exclusively hire 50-somethings (I'm in my 30s now).

One thing that is true is that you need at least 10 years of full-time experience to become competent at the design and architecture of large systems.

Anything where the business owner can create intangible products himself/herself (e.g. writing, design, wedding planning, whatever) has just as low starting capital required.

Similarly, if you go into other engineering fields (electrical, mechanical, civil, etc) nearly all the 50 year-olds are managers also.

A senior law partner who never personally argues a case or drafts a contract, but does nothing but attend meetings all day and supervise younger partners and paralegals, is still "practicing law". The chiefs of large hospital departments are still "doctors" even when they don't pick up a stethoscope for days at a time. Late in Beethoven's career, when he was almost completely deaf, no longer able to perform or even to critique other performers, he was still a "musician".

Whereas (e.g.) Joel Spolsky is now a "manager". Except when he's working on Arc, PG is more likely to be called a "manager" or an "angel investor" or a "venture capitalist" or a "technology pundit" or a "marketer" or a "writer" or a "teacher" or a "designer" or a "strategic consultant" or an "executive chef" (I think he does all of these things!) than a mere programmer. But just because these guys somehow don't fit our hyper-narrow definition of "programmer" doesn't necessarily mean that they had a problem with their software careers. It might just mean that there are many opportunities in software -- some quite rewarding or lucrative; many of which are best performed by someone who also knows how to program -- that aren't captured in the scope of the term programmer.

Part of the reason why there seem to be so few "programmers" in their forties and fifties is that by that time many of them have dreamed up a better job title for themselves, like "senior member of the technical staff" or "chief of QA" or "Java architecture consultant" or even "co-founder" or "CEO". Spolsky loves to tell the story about his Bill Gates review:

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/06/16.html

At the time of that review, Bill Gates had not been called a programmer for years and years. He was a CEO and a co-founder, and was paid accordingly (and then some). But what was he doing when he reviewed a spec in gory, technical detail? He was programming. At a higher level than the average college intern, yes, but just because you're not touching a keyboard or dealing with individual calls to malloc doesn't mean you're not programming.

Unless we decide that it does. But then we shouldn't be surprised to find that programming as a career is something that many people eventually grow out of. We've defined it that way -- as a term to describe an activity that doesn't scale well and that usually represents only a portion of a well-balanced intellectual or economic diet.

Both of them have held managerial positions up to VP-Eng, yet decided it was not what they wanted to do and downgraded themselves to rank & file software engineers, albeit very good ones.

I think there are plenty of places where coding wisdom is valued. They're just not the same places, generally, that thrive on geek bravado.

I was lucky enough to get a Commodore 64 when I was six or so, and taught myself simple programming stuff with library books. That's probably more or less true of several other people here. Imagine not even using a computer until after college, or learning by submitting code on punch cards, one batch per day.

That's a pretty lame depressing question to ask though. IMHO he should try and find some ounce of passion in himself, and find something he enjoys, or ideally loves.

For example. "You're using VB? That's so gay". "You use K&R style? Don't be so gay".

I wouldn't take offense personally. Just like being called a girl/boy/whatever isn't offensive, just funny.

1) I use your words to judge what you think, or how you might act. I can reasonably expect people who use certain words in grossly inappropriate circumstances (context is important) to be a threat to me or my aims.

2) For people with a living memory of oppression or injustice, words associated with those events are not simply neutral -- they're highly charged. It's not that the words "nigger" or "faggot" are somehow offensive in their glyphs. It's that there are people who are alive who have been humiliated or injured while having to listen to these words.

Now, none of this should be viewed as a defense of people who freak out at the slightest mention of an objectionable word, or people who want to ban any possibly offensive speech.

It's true that choosing not to be offended is easier to control than forcing everyone else not to offend you, but this "they're just words" argument is hollow.

Words are the result of intentional speech or writing actions. On hearing or reading words that we attribute to a conscious speaker or writer, we're naturally interested in their intentions, and possible future actions.

I guess he should have stuck with 'whiny emo carbon-based lifeforms'