I'm 85 and I Learned To Code. You Should Too.
blog.codehs.com
blog.codehs.com
Anyway, very impressive stuff. Too often, people seem to give up on learning new stuff at an older age. Usually around 30.
It's the same theory as is behind choosing an attractive older person. You know that the good-looking 35-year-old has started to age and is still taking care of him- or herself; the good-looking 20-year-old could fall apart in a few years once the metabolism slows down.
Everyone's curious at 22. I want the people who had enough of an insubordinate/rebellious streak to protect their creativity and curiosity through their 20s, despite their corporate masters' attempts to destroy it.
I might not be able to debug a rails app as fast as I can a JEE app but I can still grok/reason/solve issues on the platform.
From a typical boss-man perspective, your performance is reduced by this extracurricular work. You're probably working late into the evening, and thinking about Ruby during the day. You're probably planning a move to something better.
You can't be fired for that alone, but it puts you at risk of being in the socially excluded, not-getting-the-benefit-of-the-doubt category.
One of the issues with side projects is that admitting to having them breaks the Fundamental Subordinate Dishonesty (http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2012/12/12/fundamental-s...). You're "supposed" to be putting all available energy into your job, or at least respect authority enough to put effort into that illusion. Vacation is okay: that's just taking a break. Off-hours work isn't (in typical workplaces).
IMHO, he line of thinking where employers want you only grinding on today's problems rather than additionally incrementally honing the skills to innovate is a broken methodology and does not work for software. The barrier to learning these skills is too low to expect people not to want to do these things and it keeps getting lower.
1. What will you pay?
2. Do you allow for remote working?
3. Email is available on my profile.
:-) Thanks for posting the sentiment publicly. Much appreciated.
>> enough of an insubordinate/rebellious streak to protect their creativity and curiosity through their 20s, despite their corporate masters' attempts to destroy it
This is a very nice thing to say (and I consider myself in that category), but people like this are usually the one who come out of life being absolutely clobbered and all.. People like this are very nice to watch from a distance (and admire), but it is a very unpleasant hike to be in our shoes.
I try to bring light to the world in the way I can. Perhaps my ideas will percolate into power over time.
Oh, I got it first time alright. I was just pleased at the mention and wanted to acknowledge it. :-)
>> Perhaps my ideas will percolate into power over time.
Hope springs eternal. ;-)
I might be biased because I'm lucky enough to have unusual, crazy and progressive friends, but I think learning new stuff has less to do with age, and more to do with social factors such as having kids (and thus not a lot of time), or having large monthly expenses due to cars, houses, etc.
These things are correlAted of course, but I don't think age per se is a factor.
It's easy to lose perspective when you immerse yourself in a culture that celebrates young successful entrepreneurs so much.
The comment referring people in their 30s as "older people" belies a pessimistic and unrealistic outlook that this perspective can sometimes give.
Just because you aren't Zuckerberg by the time you're 22 doesn't mean your life is over.
Thirty is not old. In fact there's no such thing as old, which I would've thought is something this blog is making plain.
There's always something new to learn, always opportunities on the horizon.
Though I also had in mind this Benjamin Franklin quote:
"Many people die at twenty five and aren't buried until they are seventy five."
Since when has 30 been "an older age"? It's still well within the 1st half of a persons life (assuming average life expectancy), never mind the latter part of the 2nd half.
As a 30-something myself, I'm constantly learning new technologies (only this week I started teaching myself Go).
I know the computer industry is a very youth-orientated sector. But calling 30 year olds "old timers" is a touch unfair.
I bet a conversation with the author of this article would be very interesting. With the attitude he demonstrated here, he probably has a lot to teach.
People have lost their sense of wonder, and it's been replaced with cynicism and egomania. C'est la vie.
I believe anyone can learn anything, regardless the age.
And I agree with the author, know how to program is a useful knowledge in a world where computers are everywhere. And it also helps to improve the logical thinking. But I'm not among those who think that everybody must to learn programming.