Re:How do you handle your Aging in IT?
by cac1 on Tuesday February 02, 2021 @12:28AM
(#25997718)
I've been programming for 52 years. I'm still programming and enjoying it. For me the key was focusing on the end product, not on the programming. Programming was just something that I did to get the product I wanted. It is kind of fun, but not that important. When I was inspired to create something new and cool, I was motivated to learn the tools necessary to create that specific product. Then, I moved on. I have forgotten more languages, frameworks, and development environments, etc. than I can remember. They are not important. If you can imagine something neat to make, learning the tools to make it is engaging.
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Funny, I'm also relatively old - 50 - and have been programming almost 40 years (if you count typing in zx80-Basic code from magazines...) and I am exactly the same. I love to make things, and programming is often a creative activity where you can quickly build something that is entirely new to the world. I think that's why I like it so much, but I'm pretty uninterested in learning new tech/languages/frameworks just for the sake of knowing them. The only motivation for me is building new things (and getting people to use them). I pick up new tech quickly once I'm forced to, but usually not before then. It usually happens through collaboration with others - they use some tech, which forces me to pick it up in order to work with them, but my only real interest is to build a product and release it onto an unsuspecting world.