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As I posted just last week, I've been at the same company (sort of) for 36 years.[^]
However, I had two summer jobs before that where I:
worked at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) programming data analysis for the Viking Mars Orbiter, and then
did Operating System (TOPS-10/Tops-20) support at Digital Equipment Corp.
A positive attitude may not solve every problem, but it will annoy enough people to be worth the effort.
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With 25 years of earning a living by coding I'm about ready to hang it up, as I didn't start coding till my mid 30s that make me an official old fart. The only time I would work 80hrs in a week is if it was self imposed and I agree with others that your PM needs to be sacked if you need to regularly work those sort of hours to meed deadlines.
After 10 year in the same, very lucrative, contract it is finally coming to an end and I am dammed if I can figure out what to do next. I enjoy coding and mentoring others but with the demise of Silverlight I have lost my web expertise and MVC is a dog so it will be either WPF or retire or a complete change.
I think I fancy being a small tour bus driver in one of the Oz wine regions.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity
RAH
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_WinBase_ wrote: I've been writing & supporting code for commercial and bespoke (mainly business) systems since 1978 on many different platforms and languages, and 36 years later I still love it, still do it for a living
Me too - coding professionally since Jan 1978.
I went through the project management stuff, became CIO, didn't enjoy it so went back to development.
In the meantime I qualified as a teacher (IT and Science) & would give my left nut to be able to stop working for the man and teach full time - but getting a full time teaching job in Australia is all but impossible unless you are a) willing to relocate to woop-woop or b) just graduating from Uni.
Was actually offered a 6 month teaching contract recently, and just had to turn it down, because I can't afford to gamble on getting work at Xmas time - and can't afford to just not work.
The passion I had tends to die when I am working for a company I don't'feel' for.
If I was braver, I'd give it up and teach, and work outside school hours developing my own stuff - but I'm not a gambling man!
Hopefully I can find a job, ideally with a small company, developing interesting software, where I can learn new things and enjoy the passion again... (I'm waiting for the phone call now!)
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I feel much the same way. I've done all sorts of things since some mad maths teacher introduced me to programming in my sixth form (in 1972!), from working in a bar to senior management, but development has always been my first love.
It is noticeable how the same ideas and 'paradigms' keep re-appearing under different names or guises, but embody the same principles. (We've gone from Procedural, to Object Oriented, through Procedural again to Functional, and now we seem to be creeping back to a less dogmatic version of OO. TDD seems to have peaked, Agile likewise (and these after pushing out all the previous development methodologies that used to be so enthusastically embraced, even by government). I still like to think of myself as a Systems Analyst, as that is what I spend most of my time actually doing, in order to discover what it is the customer actually wants to achieve and with what equipment, but how often do you hear that term used these days?
If there's one thing I've learnt over the years, it is - in very simplistic terms - that programming is programming, all the other paradigms and methodologies are different (sometimes good, sometimes bad) variations on the syntactic sugar so often decried by proponents of one language about another!
I too have reached the point where, whilst still enjoying the work, I feel I would like to do something else, and I'm considering reverting to my original scientific path of chemistry...
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Coding, as in writing a program, was not interesting beyond the first 3 years for me.
Though I occasionally wrote code for another 15 or more years, I found solving the problem (designing and architecting) more interesting. Once I knew how to solve the problem, I had no interest in writing the code.
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Been coding since 1977....started on punch cards, went up to punch tape. First computer was a PDP11 compatible....had to enter bootstrap code in using toggle switches.....therefore learnt machine code first, then went to basic and then C....miss machine code.
As they say old programmers never die, they just de-compile !
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I have about 10 years experience and already am sick of it.
It's not the learning (on the contrary) or the deadlines, but the stupidity of managers who refuse to listen to anything you say. You tell them what is wrong, you tell them why and how, but still they cling on to some superior feeling they know best (and at best try to convince you with a vague argument which (s)he just invented).
There are plenty of good managers, but often they don't last long.
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I had 40 years of it starting in 1966, and that was the main problem throughout my career. And I'm sorry to say the worst offenders were Americans who were managing the UK team that I was part of. Fortunatley I knew plenty of Americans who felt the same way.
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Thanks to all who replied, some interesting stuff & i've read them all  . One thing about the 80+ hours is that i've had my own software business since 1991, and to compete with bigger companies have needed to react faster and produce better stuff, so its myself who decides this to launch products quickly, meet deadlines or keep promises (even when the customer has moved the goalpost). my strategy to do what's necessary has provided me an excellent living and kept my families head above water where many business's have failed, and for the most part have loved what I do, but Im not sure if I want to keep doing the same when i'm 60 so looking for a challenge as there's only so much golf I can play lol.
Thanks again
Bob
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Wow ... this read like I could have written it! I, too, have been 'round the block a few times in this field (38). I started just a couple years before you did. ('76). It's been a cool ride, no?
I share your sentiment about moving into management. I feel that it's for the birds, honestly. You've heard the saying: "Those who can't do, manage!" I'm an avid Dilbert fan; the "pointy-haired boss" being the spitting image of a boss I had some years back.
Like you, I still enjoy coding (and also like you a LOT of my work is troubleshooting). As for actual development, I'm spending considerably less time doing that now. My main function with my existing company is the support and troubleshooting of our code. We were bought out about 5 years ago and the parent company needs me to keep it running while they transition our client base to their product. As it is a pretty large system with many clients I'll probably be doing that for quite some time yet. I'm in no hurry to get into another big development project to be honest.
On my own time I write systems for small businesses that could not otherwise afford it. My current project is automation of a co-op farm that we participate in. I do that in exchange for a share in the farm. I also have several programs I've written for automating things for myself which I maintain and improve as I need new features. I tinker with those things as I have the time & inclination. To me, coding was never really about money (I mean, yeah, I had to make a living but I think you understand). It's nice to just write when I feel like it and experiment without having to worry about whether someone else will like it or not.
I'm finding that more and more of my time is being devoted to bike rides, building a chicken coop, stuff like that. I was pretty passionate about software development for a real long time but I'm slowly transitioning away from doing that all the time. Someday maybe (if my health holds up) I'll go drive a bus or do something that doesn't involve burning my brain out. 
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I recently started taking violin lessons again so that if (when?) I get tired of coding, I can hopefully join an orchestra 
But while the challenges remain, along with the thrill of solving them, I don't think I'll get tired of coding quickly
Open plan offices, red tape and poor project planning/management, on the other hand... 
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Started coding in grade 3 (81-82) on a TI-99 4/A, though at the time that was mostly from the coding magazines. That was what started it all though. Years later moved onto the C64, then PC. Still love it, but not every day. I still have had weeks of 80+ hours, but not with the same fervor that I did when I was younger! What I tend to enjoy more is the system analysis and design and then passing that on to others to bring the ideas to life.
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Just don't attempt a career in writing
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Touché - although that's really what I'd like to do!
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I generally don't bother too much on here today gone tomorrow forum posts but I've had articles published in the past (mainly about poker) and been paid for them which was great, but writing is an underpaid occupation and hard to make money at bearing in mind the time it takes, but I did dabble a bit for fun and uploaded some stuff to my blog site that I don't bother much with now, if you have nothing better to do and want to kill a short while have a look at www.winbase.info. GL
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How I wish that I shared your experience! I spent 28 years working as a contractor (good pay; no benefits) and ended up going on total disability in 2008. But the love of coding remains strong within me and I am always downloading the latest and greatest trial software.
Bruce Baker - brucebrookebaker@yahoo.com
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I took BASIC and COBOL on a PDP-11 when I went to community college back in the mid 70s. I bought an Apple 2 when they first came out while working on a 4 year degree. Between the Apple 2 and Pascal I was hooked. I was studying electrical engineering at the time and learned a little about assembly language by punching hex codes into an 8080 development board. As far as programming goes, I never looked back. Graduated in 1978 then went on for an MSCS and have been doing embedded programming since 1980. I also owned a TRS80 Model 100 which was one of the first (the first?) portable computers. It had built in BASIC and 32K or so of persistent storage, even had a text editor and some simple business apps built in. Unfortunately what used to be tremendous fun for me is now just a way to earn a living. I'm going to retire soon and hopefully start doing it again for enjoyment instead of for pay.
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ahhh the TRS-80. my first PC was a video genie which was a trs-80 copy, cassette tape for storage, and 8k I think. if you wanted to expand to 32k you had to buy an external unit the size of a shoebox that had its own power supply lol. those early days of little memory have always stayed with me and im sure have helped me to write concise and reusable code which i try to do to this day - happy days !! GL
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I did my first program (a simple calculator) when I was 6 (1986), on a Sinclair Z80 with Basic... It was even stored in a DataSette.
That's how I started in math...
I'm on a Fuzzy State: Between 0 an 1
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Plug boarding in 62, everything else after that...6500's,8080's & up, Sys36,4381/etc...
At 70 still at it so I still remember what it was that I was doing. OO&MVC.. starting to get complicated..
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Plug boarding in 62, everything else after that...6500's,8080's & up, Sys36,4381/etc...
At 70 still at it so I still remember what it was that I was doing. OO&MVC.. starting to get complicated..
CBW
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My first coding experiences were back in 1980 when I was 10, and after that I never stopped.
I've been working as a software engineer since 1989, and in 1994 I founded my small software house, which is still doing great.
So, I've been coding for 34 years overall, 25 as a professional.
Not bad. 
I still have tons of fun and keep getting those blissfull experiences where you are stuck to your keyboard, immersed in the wonderful universe where you are The Creator, and hours go by while the outside world is just a faint echo from far away.
In my case, the frustration comes more from the managerial part of my job, which unluckily cannot be put aside, especially since I'm the owner of the software house...
I am and will always be a technician and a geek, and although I am not that bad as a manager (but only cause my company is so small!  ), I still feel like all the time I spend in meetings, presentations and such is just wasted. I feel the same about the time I spend driving when I have to visit a customer (this is a very small amount of my time, luckily - thanks God for teleservice and global communications!  ).
I realize this is just a very subjective point of view, and that's not wasted time all. It's actually time spent in order to allow my company to prosper and let me do what I like best: coding.
Still, that's how I feel. If I ever had to be forced to a managerial-only role, I think I would slowly wither and die!!! 
Having said all that, I can understand your frustration, since by what you say what's wearing you out is not your job as a coder itself, but rather the fact you are forced to work in a very stressful environment. I wish you a very good luck and hope your situation gets better. I sure know it would wear me out too!
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice, but not in practice. - Anonymous
A computer is a stupid machine with the ability to do incredibly smart things, while computer programmers are smart people with the ability to do incredibly stupid things. They are, in short, a perfect match. - B. Bryson
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I have the record. I started in 1960 with UNIVAC working on the 1st computers for NAVY ships CIC operations.
Still coding at 77 on Vari-lite moving lights. (Lots of steper motors.)
Larry
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You Sir DO have the record as far as i'm concerned, having started a year before I was born lol. If I push it I can say I started on programmable calculators a year or so before computers, either 76 or 77, cant remember exactly, but I take my hat off to you
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