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Nope, I just feel lost. I learned programming as an adjunct to engineering, back when my devices had only 512 bytes of memory, but did nothing without programming them. Looking at timing diagrams for TTL parts and matching them to cycle times for various opcodes to make everything work perfectly in sync was fun. I went through an awful lot of quad-ruled desk pads doing it, but it was fun. When things got to a higher level, the feeling of control was lost, and along with it, most of the fun. Windows was the end of fun programming for me; it took more time to get the GUI right than the actual function of the application, and I'm not interested in being a commercial artist. The IoT world is renewing my interest, but I've got an awful lot of catching up to do... 
Will Rogers never met me.
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I can relate to some of this. I felt lost in IoT less than a month ago, but apparently I'm catching on quick, according to my client I'm great at it. My takeaway is it doesn't take a lot to learn if you already have experience coding on embedded or old 8-bit systems and such. For me a lot was like riding a bike. Go for it!
Real programmers use butterflies
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Quote: But part of me wonders if it isn't because I'm getting old, and learning all these technologies feels more and more like a waste of what time I have left.
If you are wondering you probably are  .
This is one of my pet peeves: apart from whatever is taught in CS curriculum, we should have been taught to manage our careers like professional athletes. No professional tennis player expects to play in his forties. They move to coaching or live from whatever have accumulated. Same applies to programmers and specially to 10x ones: by the time you are 40 you start becoming a 5x, 3x,.. 0.1x 
You still can do useful things and be gainfully employed but the fun is over.
Just my 0.02$
Mircea
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Mircea Neacsu wrote: we should have been taught to manage our careers like professional athletes
If only we got paid like professional athletes. 
Real programmers use butterflies
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Not sure I was ever 10x but I am feeling the pain too. To some degree, it is a young mans game.
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Mircea Neacsu wrote: Same applies to programmers and specially to 10x ones: by the time you are 40 you start becoming a 5x, 3x,.. 0.1x
Speak for yourself. It's attitude, not age that defines a career. Young people tend to be vibrant, know every modern framework, and open to new idea's, however they are missing the business knowledge, the "why" things are done in a certain way.
I've lost count of the number of "up and comers" who are ready to "change the world" who get knocked back within their first year because whilst they knew the technologies, they didn't understand the business need.
If you want to continue having a "10x career" after you're no longer young and vibrant, make sure you have that business knowledge as well as the technical, plus the right attitude.
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honey the codewitch wrote: But part of me wonders if it isn't because I'm getting old, and learning all these technologies feels more and more like a waste of what time I have left.
A friend of mine recently said something I considered wise - "consider decisions without concern for money." It's amazing how much clarity one can get by first thinking about "if money were not an issue, what would I do?" then you can add money back in.
The point being, I would also say "consider choosing what you learn without concern for what time you have left."
honey the codewitch wrote: It's entirely different than how I would have and how I used to build learning systems,
YES! And while there appears to be a lot of successes, I feel like the way AI/machine learning is being done completely misses the mark (pun intended.)
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Marc Clifton wrote: A friend of mine recently said something I considered wise - "consider decisions without concern for money."
I'm good at this, probably because of a fundamental distaste for money. An employer once told me money is freedom so chase money and my first thought was to cut out the middle man. I worked less ever since then. Though now I'm paid more.
I'll never be rich because of it, but I've known several rich people but no happy ones.
Marc Clifton wrote: YES! And while there appears to be a lot of successes, I feel like the way AI/machine learning is being done completely misses the mark (pun intended.)
I have a hunch it will continue to miss the mark until we move past computers as Linear Bounded Automata which I simply do not think are up to the task.
Real programmers use butterflies
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honey the codewitch wrote: 520kB of RAM
Don't make me cry. I feel sooooo sorry for you.
Once upon a time I was stuck to 4k (and whatever RAMs I could scrape out of electronics junk).
Quote: Anyone else ever feel that way?
It's simple. Frameworks last about a week until they change everything in a new version. The fundamentals stay forver, no matter what processors, OS, languages or whatever you use. If you only care about the high level stuff, you are just struggling to keep up with all the sh*t someone else wants to dump on your computer.
I have lived with several Zen masters - all of them were cats.
His last invention was an evil Lasagna. It didn't kill anyone, and it actually tasted pretty good.
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32kb effective is the least I've ever had to deal with. 4kb is rough!
I agree with your comment, generally.
Real programmers use butterflies
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I'm implementing a (felt) million of assembly macros for VT100 compatibility right now. Looks like the Zwölf is going to be stuck with it's serial terminal for a while longer. Before I can build a graphics card, I first got to speed up the hardware. Someone got his CDP1806 to up to 14 MHz. Now I'm curious how fast I can get my CDP1802.
I have lived with several Zen masters - all of them were cats.
His last invention was an evil Lasagna. It didn't kill anyone, and it actually tasted pretty good.
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overclock it and submerge it in mineral oil. That should be good for a few MHz
Real programmers use butterflies
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extra fancy!
Real programmers use butterflies
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Old as it may be, but at 7 MHz it does not even get warm. Passive cooling, just some conductive paste and a heat sink, will be all. Somewhere along the way the internal timing will break down, long before heat really becomes a problem. Carefully raising the core voltage will be more important to keep heat in check. For even having a separate core voltage the poor misunderstood thing was seen as an anachronism back then. The truth is that it was not outdated. It was far ahead of its time.
I have lived with several Zen masters - all of them were cats.
His last invention was an evil Lasagna. It didn't kill anyone, and it actually tasted pretty good.
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First real programming job I had the machine took up 3 racks, the CPU was 4U, the 2 Mb disk 4U. We had 16K ( but I _think_ that was 16 bit words ) and that because both banks had been "knitted" together. Before someone caught that we had ordered 12K. ( PDP 11-15 ).
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Interesting. My first home computer was a PDP-11 (15).
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The reason one gets "old" is due to "time compression": when you don't learn anything new, one day is just like the rest.
I once said to myself I was too old to learn that (something); then looking back, after x years, it now seems is ridiculous.
I've stopped thinking about where a path might lead and if I have enough "time". It only got more interesting. It's the new domains you have to learn along the way.
It was only in wine that he laid down no limit for himself, but he did not allow himself to be confused by it.
― Confucian Analects: Rules of Confucius about his food
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I have had a theory about this time compression too. One day like the rest is a big part of it. Nothing important for the brain to keep a vivid record about so it seems like the time is short. I notice the effect disappear when I go on vacation overseas where there is so much new to take in. There is also some effect of each year being a smaller portion of the total. So in wide retrospect, things seem to be going faster.
Moral of the story: do new and interesting things!
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Maybe you should consider combining the two - make a parser generator for a custom language you design or one not available on the machine. Maybe a code generator for dealing with I/O of various flavors. I am sure you can come up with something that bridges those interests, if that is something that compels you.
"They have a consciousness, they have a life, they have a soul! Damn you! Let the rabbits wear glasses! Save our brothers! Can I get an amen?"
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I've always enjoyed "programming in the small". I've found it's possible to do this in any development environment if you have the mindset for it. The question you have to ask yourself is:
"What's the minimum amount of code I can write that does the job?"
or perhaps more to the point,
"What's the least-engineered code I can write?"
This notion is most easily expressed as things not to do. If you're thinking of acronyms like KISS[^] or YAGNI[^], you're on the right track. I always liked the notion that "every layer of abstraction is another layer of obscurity", also known as "it's frameworks all the way down". Just because you have two or more types of 'things' in your program, you don't necessarily need to create abstractions for them. I especially dislike abstraction layers that are added solely for the purpose of adhering to some arbitrary metric or style guideline.
Software Zen: delete this;
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honey the codewitch wrote: with 520kB of RAM
That's 86 times the RAM I'm working on at the moment, and about 4 times the flash size. Automotive is fun!
GCS d--(d+) s-/++ a C++++ U+++ P- L+@ E-- W++ N+ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE- Y+ PGP t+ 5? X R+++ tv-- b+(+++) DI+++ D++ G e++ h--- r+++ y+++* Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
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Nice. I've always wanted to program an ECU.
Real programmers use butterflies
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IDEs suck. I managed to cram VS and VSCode (which surprised me, as on my current project it's better than VS+VAX) everywhere at least as a code editor / navigator.
The venerable TurboC is positively alien technology compared to some of the worst offenders (MULTI and Keil are on the top list).
GCS d--(d+) s-/++ a C++++ U+++ P- L+@ E-- W++ N+ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE- Y+ PGP t+ 5? X R+++ tv-- b+(+++) DI+++ D++ G e++ h--- r+++ y+++* Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
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