"I am sorry, but you are not a programmer anymore"

Your gatekeeping is not welcome here. This isn't a competition.

"The reason you are able to completely ignore the age issue is because there's no ageism in hiring business analysts and project managers. The ageism is visible in hiring programmers, which most certainly you are not."

and your unfounded conclusions aren't welcome either.

> This isn't a competition.

Except it is, as that is the single goal of this thread: Find out who is the longest serving Programmer, not the oldest guy doing something with IT. His remark is not wrong in that context.

But it is unnecessary, pedantic and mean. We can all read the programmer/analyst's post for ourselves; we don't need an interpreter.

By that logic we should only have single depth in comments. Everyone is reading every comment for themselves.

The "but they said this" posts add nothing. The thread is unchanged if they are removed. So I advise, don't post them.

In addition that unnecessary post asserted personal things not in evidence, giving the most uncharitable interpretation which is actually in direct violation of this site's standards and practices.

It does add something. If there is a direct question, and someone is answering it incorrectly it should be valid to tell them they misunderstood. Also calling someone a non programmer is not mean.

Nope. Not a charitable interpretation; not necessary by any means to 'correct' what is obviously an anecdotal comment in the same vein as the OP. Not even correct to call the commenter a non-programmer - assuming things not in evidence.

A question like "But have you been continuously employed as a programmer?" could be reasonable and not mean-spirited.

The goal seems to be sharing experiences at different points in long careers. I don't see any competition.

I am just 37 but find myself much more comfortable in management than writing code, compared to 27yo myself. I can't understand why you shame someone for pointing at true facts.

It's a bit pointless given the commenter in question didn't even call themselves a programmer. Or comes across as doubling down: "I know you didn't call yourself a programmer, but just to make sure you know you don't count anymore I'll tell you explicitly". And of course being PM doesn't preclude programming too, so it's just guessing.

Don't really have a stake in this either way, but presumably to determine the "longest-serving programmer", it is a bit of a competition, no?

Definitely the comment was mean-spirited, but the core - which is that if we are trying to determine longest programmer, this is likely not a contender - seems to be true?

as soon as you start to perceive online interactions as a competition, you get exactly the kind of attitude the original comment had. We can seek to figure out who might be the "longest-serving programmer" without being combative and dismissive.

I don't think the OP is looking to claim the "Official Award for Longest-serving Programmer" as much as they are looking to start a discussion to learn more about others (which Ask HN is almost always for). This is an anonymous online forum after all, how much strict moderation and fact-checking of peoples history do you want to have?

I don’t think the parent’s point is invalid. We’re seeking the oldest programmer, in this case someone who writes code professionally.

If we want to play fast and loose with our definitions then I’m a farmer, because I grow plants in my backyard.

this is an online forum. Ask HN is for starting discussions. This isn't a rigid competition that needs to be strictly moderated.

Even all that aside, his tone and dismissive attitude towards ageism is not welcome here.

I don't think you have any idea if they're still programming or not, and thus stating "you are not a professional programmer" is totally unfounded even if it turns out to be true. However, the reverse is also possible.

They transitioned from "pure programming" only in the last few years. Most of the long-time programmers that I've known that transition to other roles keep programming. Some of them were absolutely brilliant programmers and it's a hard decision organizationally to take their time away from coding and put it into some other area.

I've also known "professional programmers" that 1) don't seem to care about code much at all and 2) aren't writing much code at all, sloppy or otherwise.

I think the label "programmer" can be descriptive of all sorts, and has more to do with how often the skill is deployed and less to do with job title/role.

Just because your job title is "head chef" doesn't mean you don't still cook...in fact there's a good chance you can still run circles around your line cooks even if managing the kitchen means your knife skills are not as good as they once were.

I propose the simplest metric. Point to a hash for a commit that made it into production (your project or a collaboration) in the last month. If you have that in hand, you're still "programming".