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Earl Truss wrote: I don't feel that I'm that out of date but I certainly don't feel like learning any new languages any more.
Why not? Unless you are learning something very exotic (like Prolog), it shouldn't take you more than a month to learn a new language.
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Nemanja Trifunovic wrote: Earl Truss wrote:
I don't feel that I'm that out of date but I certainly don't feel like learning any new languages any more.
Why not? Unless you are learning something very exotic (like Prolog), it shouldn't take you more than a month to learn a new language.
I agree that it shouldn't take much time to learn a new language. I just choose not to unless I have to. My current job is probably my last one and in my next life I will probably have more interesting things to do.
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Rob Philpott wrote:
IT has always been a young man's game because the skill is so new, and I've been concerned for a while what I'll do when I get into my late 40s, it's incredibly ageist, and I suspect getting employment however good you are or how well your CV reads is going to be difficult (or low paid). Most of the people I work with are quite a bit younger than me generally. That said, I do know people who look for those in at least their 30s, who have done some heavy duty stuff like C++ in their past before everything became Mickey Mouse and everyone jumped on-board.
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Just stay current and you'll find that age doesn't make any difference. I retired at age 62 and they're still calling me to see if I can come back to work on this project and that project. I've been in "the business" since 1966; the '70s were a boom for IT people and it's still the best career you can have. It's a big city business unless you're satisfied maintan
ing legacy Cobol or RPGIII apps. After a brief tour as a manager in a small telephone company in rural Georgia, at age 55, I finally responded to some of the calls I had been getting and came back to Atlanta, happy as a bird.
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Started in 1968 with OCR programming, and have never looked back. I loved COBOL because it paid a lot of bills, and besides, none of the new kids want anything to do with it. I would love to just work a couple of months fixing some problem and then go back to relaxing..
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"Now you are 35 years old. In case you get the job, you would be the oldest man in the company. How do you think you could cope with that?"
I did not get that job - that was in 2003, already a couple of years ago...
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In college, my co-op job. VAX BASIC, system management, and operations on a MicroVAX 3600.
I had to use BASIC because that's what the boss knew.
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I'm the same, but I wasn't being payed until AFTER college.
Panic, Chaos, Destruction.
My work here is done.
or "Drink. Get drunk. Fall over." - P O'H
OK, I will win to day or my name isn't Ethel Crudacre! - DD Ethel Crudacre
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Same here, except it was SABRE and REBATE2 (proprietary test languages used with automatic test systems). That said, I was employed as a systems engineer at the time (I jumped to a pure software career in 1996) so back then I actually spent more time working on hardware or writing technical reports than doing software. In some ways that was a blessing as the software environment there at the time was primitive compared to what I had access to at home!
I finally succeeded in introducing C to that department (on a 6809!) in 1993, and C++ in 1995.
Anna ![Rose | [Rose]](https://codeproject.global.ssl.fastly.net/script/Forums/Images/rose.gif)
Tech Blog | Visual Lint
"Why would anyone prefer to wield a weapon that takes both hands at once, when they could use a lighter (and obviously superior) weapon that allows you to wield multiple ones at a time, and thus supports multi-paradigm carnage?"
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My first programming job was developing software on an HP-1000 minicomputer in FORTRAN 66.
Software Zen: delete this;
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I remember those.
My first development job was in 1979 on a IBM System34 using RPG.
Those were the days!
if (ToErr == Human.Nature)
{
Forgive = Divine;
}
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Ah yes, I remember my first back in '79. This cute little PDP-11 only knew FORTRAN-77 and she had her way w/ me!
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I startet programming in 1984 ... Osborne 1.
I cannot remember: What did I before google?
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'78, Apple II
'85 moved to the amiga and C++
why'd they stop at 20?...Is that age discrimination? 
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maybe they think there where no programmers before the 80´s
I cannot remember: What did I before google?
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Yes but was it already your job at that time?
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yes ... full time job, meaning: earning money for it.
I cannot remember: What did I before google?
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1976 - Data General Nova. PC was not invented yet!
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1982. Intel emulators and PL/M and ASM-86, then VAX and lovely octal.
Amazing to realise I worked for years without a mouse.
A.
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LOL... 
It was black and white mostly. No graphical environment to speak of....
Me...
TRS-80 Model I .... as a young kid with my father.
A Tandy computer from there .... actually updated the processor and added a RAM disk, with battery backup.
History from there.
Somewhere along the way, I got a job and soon started programming for a living.
I've always found the environment FUN and EXCITING to work in. Especially with all the changes over the years.
James
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1979 direct after graduating: Fortran - ugh...
Since then it just gets better.
------------------<;,><-------------------
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what is wrong with fortran?
 some citations from ... experienced developers:
real programmers are writing fortran. in any language.
if it cannot written in fortran, it is not worth to be written.
I cannot remember: What did I before google?
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>what is wrong with fortran?
IMPLICIT NONE
(:
------------------<;,><-------------------
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First paid job in 1977 on DEC PDP-11...
Worked with DataGeneral mainframes at college -
Input by punched paper tape created on a mechanical teletype.
At the risk of sounding a bit Monty Python:
"Kids nowadays, they don't know they're born!"
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Commodore 64 was the first computer (if you can call it that ) I programmed on as a professional back in the 80's.
First computer language I learnt was Cobol in college. Now I handle the Microsoft Stack from UI (web/desktop) to server side (primary SQL Server). You have to learn a hell of lot more now-a-days then the
10 print "hello"
20 Goto 10
type of programming. Threading, security, web standards/protocols just to name a few.
I am still worried about being employeed in my 50's (only another 5 years away), the same went for my 40's, and come to think about it my 30's as well. Time will tell. If you can adapt and keep current with technology then you have a better chance of being employed.
I bet programming today will be totally different in 5 years time (with multitouch screens, speech recognisation etc).
Richard....
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