2634 points by genedangelo 2101 days ago | 531 comments on HN
| Mild positive Editorial · v3.7· 2026-02-28 10:57:39· from archive
Summary Right to Work & Education Champions
This is a first-person career retrospective celebrating 57 years of continuous programming work and educational achievement. The narrative affirms the author's exercised rights to work, education, and freedom of expression, demonstrating strong implicit support for UDHR provisions on employment, lifelong learning, and professional participation. No human rights violations are raised or addressed.
given the numerous posts about age discrimination on hn, i'm delighted to hear your story and wish you many more years of happy programming. as a whipper-snapper 40-something developer, it gives me hope and motivation.
I think you probably are, if you go by date you started working to the date you stopped! Even Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie seem to have started their first programming jobs a few years after you.
Welcome to HN! I hope you stick around, it can be a great place.
What do you think about all of the advances that happened in your time, especially with what machine learning is capable of these days (fully artificial human faces, for one)?
Any advice (technical or life) for us younger people?
Knuth was being paid by Burroughs to implement an Algol-58 compiler in 1960. He’s still programming, and seems to have advice for others on the subject. But I don’t expect to see him here.
Congratulations on being in that company, and may it long continue.
Periodically there are questions here about dealing with burnout and learning to cope with technological change/churn. Someone who's been doing it enthusiastically for over half a century sounds like exactly the kind of person who could offer advice on that. Do you have any?
Congrats, you made it top 1 on HN! When we live in a world where experience is treated as baggage it is remarkable to find people in places like here to still appreciate it. I hope you will be able to enjoy your career until you decide yourself to retire! I think a lot of younger folks here, who are old by modern standards - I just turned 40 this year - are thirsty for some wisdom and lots of questions will be asked. And please don’t be offended if someone attacks you for some oppinion, this is the world we live in nowadays, someone’d find a fault in almost anything or anyone.
Respect! That's truly inspirational. At barely half the experience with 30 years I keep wondering about what next. I still do plenty of programming in C (which, along with Z80 and 8086 assembly, is what I started with), Python and JS with some dabbling in Go. I find the problem solving part as invigorating and exhilarating as ever. What I do struggle with is the 100x additional lines of code which will be needed to make that initial code usable by others. That is needed and all that, but is stuff I would have done dozens of times in the past in different contexts and sometimes approaches drudgery. I wonder if you have any advice on how to keep the interest from flagging in a project past that initial days/weeks of deep absorption. Thanks again for sharing this.
My grandpa is ~75, started programming professionally in his early 20s, and currently works as an engineer for the University of Utah, so my hunch is that there’s more people with 50+ years of software engineering experience than you might at first suspect.
Respect! I've only been programming since approx 1979. I still remember the first time that I saw internet technology used in 1982 - transferring a file from the US to the Uni of Leeds in the UK. I also have no plans to stop although I have retired from full-time employment. Now just a hobbyist, who programs every few days, at my own pace and on my own projects.
Here's my own thought. My last place of work did a lot of research into teaching and simulation tech, and was heavily pushing AR / VR solutions from a disruptor perspective. Some of the theoreticians were heavily into their generation X/Y/Z perspectives and made a lot the advantages that young people would have as 'digital natives'.
As someone who'd been using computers since before they were born, I was quietly amused as being characterised as someone who couldn't properly understand tech because I didn't program until I was age 17/18. It could be argued that many modern digital natives are really the locked-in inhabitants of digital cities and walled gardens. I now characterise myself as a sort of 'digital settler' who in retrospect could be viewed as a pioneer on the digital frontier (although this is not how I perceived it in the early 80s when I was learning Pascal and then C on DEC, Amdhal and Vaxen).
I think my message for people who want to stay involved with the tech is to decouple their enjoyment of it from their career aspirations. Of course, YMMV!
Welcome to HN and for making this place more magical by your presence. Have seen other very senior programmers here over the years. Paul Lutus comes to mind now[1].
One question: Do you go through a mid life crisis in programming in your 40s/50s?
My story (just felt like sharing): I am in my 40s and have been programming for 30 years (I first wrote in Fortran in my Engineering College, 1st semester). Later professionally coded in C++ for around 10 years (and still keep coming back to it, as needed). Java for 10 years. Golang for 7 years. And Python for last 2-3 years. And there were other languages like Visual basic (late 90s). A lot of Unix shell scripting. I still think, I am at my best. But do have occasional self doubts. The main difference from younger days, which is perceptible to me, is the need for eye glasses, and needing slightly bigger fonts on occasions (HN is perfect that way).
I teach/guide my elder son, in programming, who just turned 20, and doing well as a programmer - did half of K&R C chapters and decent in algorithmic programming. Spent few months at Codeforces website and reached specialist level (Next level is Expert, which is generally considered respectable by any standard). And he also likely lurks on HN. :)
So now, when I see your message, it only makes me happy, that HN has likely at least 3 generation of programmers if not more.
I am 80 years old and still working full time in IT. Although I evolved from pure programming to project management and business analysis the past few years. Originally started out working at Cape Canaveral as a radar and telemetry engineer and moved into programming after I left there. Whenever I interview, I completely ignore the age issue. If the interviewer is to dumb to recognize the value of my knowledge and experience, that is on them. Finally completed my PhD in Computer science when I was in my 60's.
You have my respect sir (I assume, but women have been a significant force in programming since the days of Yore).
I have been writing software since 1983, and Apple software since 1986. I started as an EE (actually, technician, but became an EE in '84).
I was a manager for a large part of my career, which relegated my programming to open-source projects (one of which has become a rather significant force, in its own right).
I also worked for a Japanese corporation for almost 27 years. The Japanese have a sort of "reverse-ageism" in their culture. Older folks are often treated with a great deal of respect, and their judgment is considered valuable. Many promotions have age (must be "at least"...) as a factor. There's lots of issues with Japanese business culture, but it was the environment where I learned a lot of my cultural cues.
So, it has been rather...interesting to encounter the current...um...level of respect...for experienced engineers in today's American tech industry.
TBH, it was shocking. I knew that it was a factor, but I had no idea that it was so prevalent. I was absolutely gobsmacked.
When I first encountered it, I just wanted to throw in the towel and run, but I don't work that way. Instead, I doubled-down, and it has been quite gratifying. I guess old dudes can code, after all...
Not looking to compete for the crown, but I have been involved with software development on and off since 1970. I started college in 1969, and really loved my liberal arts and social science courses, but began having panic attacks in class (I found out many years later that I was bipolar). My hail Mary move was switching majors to 'Business Data Processing'. My thought being that programming would give me a salable skill the quickest. We were doing JCL and COBOL programming on the school mainframe using punch cards. The panic attacks continued, and I dropped out of school in 1971. In 1975, I enlisted in the US Air Force, and spent six years working in Signal Intelligence. I have been part of the defense contractor corps (aka Beltway Bandits) since 1981, and doing database development/admin continuously from 1988 to this day. I'm 69 now.
Being 63, I don't get to say this very often: I am one of the youngest people in this conversation.
Delighted to read these stories about even-older-than-me old-timers. Even though I am a relative spring chicken, I'll list my old-timey computing experiences:
- Started programming on programmable Wang and Monroe calculators.
- PDP-8m in high school. 12k 12-bit words for four terminals running Basic. By special arrangement, I could take over the whole thing and use FORTRAN.
- IBM-370 in college, and I spent lots of hours on an IBM 029 keypunch. (That's where I developed my love of loud, clicky keyboards.)
- First job with Datasaab (yes, a computer division of Saab), and I programmed in their weird DIL-16 language.
- PDP-11 in grad school.
- Various VAXen in my early working life. Picked up Emacs in 1985 and now it's in my fingertips.
- A buddy and I wrote a book intended to support people who needed to work with a large variety of computing environments, (a real problem my buddy encountered). It was instantly obsolete, as it was published as minis were dying and PCs were becoming dominant. (https://www.amazon.ae/Computer-Professionals-Quick-Reference...)
- Many years in startups, mostly in Unix/Linux environments.
Of course, it exists. If you are over 40 and go on an interview where the interviewer is a 20 something kid you know what I mean.
My approach to age discrimination can be summed up this way.
Screw them. I have more experience and knowledge in the field than 99% of the people working in it, especially the managers. And I project that in an interview. I don't give a crap what they think of my age and I make sure they know that. I have what they need and they would be better off recognizing that.
Does that attitude work every time? Of course not. But I will be dammed if I will be submissive and put up with age discrimination. To hell with them. If they don't give me a job, some with better sense will.
I learned programming in Fall 1961 from Forman Acton at Princeton. Programmed IBM 601 in Bell I, IBM 1620 in Fortran II. First job was summer 1962 at Bolt, Beranek, and Newman programming the PDP-1 in assembly. Never stopped working as a programmer. Main language now is Python. I am machine learning architect at Sigma Labs Inc. I am 80 and I played NIM on a computer built to do ballistics in 1947 at Maxon Corporation.
I hope to make 80 - not sure my health will hold up. I did see the article on Grace Hopper on Wikipedia. She began her computing career in 1944 and she died in 1992, so that's a maximum of only 48 years. On that measure, I have her beat by 9 years already.
According to Wikipedia, Grace Hopper started her computing career in 1944 when she worked on the Harvard Mark 1, which would have put her at ~38 when she began. Assuming she worked until her death, that puts her career in computing at a (incredibly impressive) 47 years.
while not as old as OP, I personally know several programmers in their 50s and 60s and all said they had no problem finding work.
I think if you're a top-tier developer (which OP seems to be!) age discrimination may not be as much of a factor? If you're decent but not amazing (most of us honestly) you may find it easier to find work at 35 than at 55.
As a rather young person in the field, I'd love to hear your thoughts on any question you feel the motivation to answer. Your learned wisdom is appreciated by all of us young bucks!
Margaret Hamilton is an inspiration, but is she actually still working at age 83? I can't find anything that would indicate she is. For something like the "longest-working programmer" I'd expect them to have been actually "work"-working during that time.
And I think I'd classify Knuth as the slightly different "longest working computer scientist". He's known for his quote "Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it."
Or perhaps I'd classify him as the somewhat more sycophantic "longest working genius" or "longest working cool guy". Heck, Knuth was uniquely awarded a master's degree for his bachelor's because his work was considered so outstanding, he's an organist and composer, and he's hilarious. I love this quote about him: "If you had an optimization function that was in some way a combination of warmth and depth, Don would be it."
Partly cribbed from my comment downthread: I think I'd classify Knuth as the slightly different "longest working computer scientist". He's known for his quote "Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it."
Or perhaps I'd classify him as the somewhat more sycophantic "longest working genius" or "longest working cool guy". Heck, Knuth was uniquely awarded a master's degree for his bachelor's because his work was considered so outstanding, he's an organist and composer, and he's hilarious. I love this quote about him: "If you had an optimization function that was in some way a combination of warmth and depth, Don would be it."
A quote from him in an interview I found: "Indeed, as mentioned above, my life's work was to be a teacher."
Don't forget Ivan Sutherland and Niklaus Wirth. Fred Brooks joined IBM in 1956 and he's still active in research as well; Cynthia Solomon, there's quite a few
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> I wonder if you have any advice on how to keep the interest from flagging in a project past that initial days/weeks of deep absorption.
I, too, have been programming for 32 years. I have thought about your question many times. My current solution is to 'play more'. Allow yourself to play, even when you are in the 100x additional part. Playing makes your passion flare up again. By play I mean to start interesting side projects, ideas, try something new.
The industry is backwards. Would you rather have a 25-year-old plumber, architect, photographer, chef, or a 50-year-old one?
Artists get better with age. Programming is an art. All tedious tasks get automated away. All that's left are design decisions. Making good design decisions is what people mean by "taste". Taste gets better with experience.
A young person may have more physical energy, but to paraphrase Steve Jobs, they don't have any taste. Their surplus physical energy could be a liability, as they'll just write more code that's hard to maintain. Of course there are exceptions. Don't discriminate by age in either direction. Ask for experience, and make your final judgment after examining their portfolio (just as you would an architect or photographer), looking for signs of good taste.
Not the OP but I got my first programming job as a junior in high school in 1980 so I've been at it for 40 years. If that's good enough, here are my answers:
> What ideas proved useful throughout your career
Learning Lisp. I got an enormous amount of leverage out of that, and still do (I'm more or less retired, but I have a nice little Lisp consulting gig at the moment).
> what ideas did you change your mind about?
Before Lisp I thought BASIC was pretty cool (old-school BASIC, with line numbers). I was pretty down on Python when I first encountered it but now I'm a fan.
> What are your hobbies?
I like to hike, bike, ski, travel, fly airplanes, free dive and ride flowriders. I also write a blog.
> Do you still program in your spare time - if so, what?
Yes, but not very much. The last big project I did was writing the firmware for this product:
and the e-commerce system I use to sell it. That was quite a while ago.
> Did you get the PhD?
Yes, because I thought I wanted to be a college professor. Turns out that's not what I wanted, but I'm still glad I did it. But it's not for everyone. It really depends on what you want out of life. Do it because you love research. Don't do it as a means to some other end. It takes way too many of the best years of your life to do it for anything other than its own sake.
> What were the Big Ideas in software over your career that didn't work out? Any that were better than expected?
I've seen a zillion software fads come and go. UML. XML. ISO whatever the fuck it was back in 2000 or so. The vast majority of popular things in the software world are bullshit. The world keeps re-inventing s-expressions with different syntax. Very little has turned out better than expected, though Rust and webassembly look pretty cool. If I were going to do another deep dive into something today it would probably be one of those two things.
> General successes/regrets/advice for these readers!
The world today is awash with computational wealth beyond the wildest dreams of my youth. Take advantage of it. Get a Raspberry pi and noodle around with it. Bring up a web server, an email server, a DNS server. If you're really feeling ambitious, write your own, or write a game. Build a Linux kernel from source. Design your own programming language and write a compiler for it, even if it's just a minor riff on something that already exists. None of these things are particularly hard [1], and the things you will learn and the empowerment you will feel by doing them are priceless.
[1] The hard part of programming is not getting things to work, the hard part is getting things to work well enough for someone else to want to use use.
Oh yeah, I started at 12, now I'm 62, still working happily, I think the trick is to reinvent yourself every decade or so, find something completely different to do, it's a big field
> It could be argued that many modern digital natives are really the locked-in inhabitants of digital cities and walled gardens.
So true. I am lucky that almost all my programming is for personal enjoyment/growth and have gotten a huge amount of pleasure from breaking out of the infinity of abstractions that make up modern operating systems and getting into electronics and microcontrollers (which can now be purchased for pennies). There’s something great about truly understanding a system (also true about larger scale and even non technical systems, but I have particularly felt the change you describe from pioneer/settler to controller citizens on modern computers).
How do you find your brain works and how productive you are compared to say 20 years ago? My father is in his late 70s and gets quite tired during his day - I wonder if you keep working it keeps the brain more active.
Also it must be weird going to a retirement party for someone who is 15 years younger than you :D
I'm in my 50's now, started my career during college, writing educational software for Apple II clones (not in FORTH, sadly). Now mostly Python, since the early 2000's, with little bits of other languages here and there.
I find HN delightful for the diversity we see here.
I think someday we will be able to duplicate the basic brain of an infant in a computer. Don't forget all the information is in our DNA and there's not that much innate knowledge - most of the infant's brain relates to the amazing capacity to learn. Someone will then take one home and train it like a human baby. It will become so close to a human that it will spark debates about whether it has self-awareness and whether it should have human rights. I regret I won't be around to see it, but who knows - maybe I'll be back :-)
The one thing that comes to mind is to avoid the "hammer looking for a nail" syndrome. I see this all the time, especially in academia. Rather than worry about learning all the latest stuff, concentrate on solving the problem at hand in the simplest and most effective manner. If that requires you to learn new things, then that's a great time to expand your repertoire - working on a specific problem. Of course you have to strike a balance, but mainly concentrate on solving problems rather than being up-to-date on all the latest stuff and trying to find the proverbial nail for your new hammer.
That's a lot of questions, but let me take a couple. I got my Master's degrees in the early 1970's, when we used something called a "slide rule". In 1990 I went back to school to update my skills and expand my knowledge into artificial intelligence, which I had become enamored with. Unfortunately, I didn't finish my PhD (big mistake!) because in 1995 I jumped on an opportunity to join a company that had this amazing software that enabled very advanced analytics on big data (except it wasn't called "big data" back then). The software was called HOPS (for Heuristic Optimized Processing System) and I still use it today to develop custom machine learning applications among other things. I went back to school again in 2016 to fill in some gaps so would qualify as a real "data scientist" - the latest craze. I will say that HOPS was and is the biggest idea in software that hasn't worked out - at least not commercially. It's a system that is great for data scientists working on big data and enables them to do their own programming with minimal effort. I'm still hoping HOPS will take it's deserved place in the world of software development. It will be a great loss if it doesn't! It's one reason I'm holding on - to prove the exceptional things that it enables and prevent it from being tossed into the trash bin of history.
Why are you not yet retired? I can think of few strong reasons, but I would love to hear from you. (I started programming at 8, I’m 41 and I have no plans of stopping )
I'm 43 now and working like 23 years in IT in various roles. Started a few companies and did that all on a high school diploma. One of my dreams is when I retire to finally go to university and get a proper degree.This more for emotional sentiment.
My grandfather was a (fighter)pilot and later he worked senior management at a bank. His biggest regret was not going to uni himself(poor parents and the army paid for it), later that my mum didn't go uni (she became a teacher) and after that even his grandson didn't get a degree.
Hopefully I can follow it online and I can speed up the lectures to 1,75x :d
Post strongly affirms the right to education. The author explicitly describes two Master's degrees, Ph.D. study, Graduate Certificates, and professional certification. Lifelong learning is celebrated as central to personal and professional identity.
FW Ratio: 67%
Observable Facts
The author states: 'I earned a Master's in Operations Research and a Master's in Management Science.'
The author describes: 'studied artificial intelligence for 3 years in a Ph.D. program for engineering.'
The author mentions: 'Graduate Certificates in Big Data Analytics from the schools of business and computer science.'
The author holds 'Certified Analytics Professional (CAP)' designation.
Inferences
The pattern of continuous education across 57 years demonstrates sustained access to education throughout the lifespan.
Education is framed as intrinsic to the author's identity and human flourishing.
Post strongly affirms the right to work and work under fair conditions. The author describes 57 years of continuous employment with no mention of exploitation or barriers, having freely chosen their career path and remaining employed into retirement age.
FW Ratio: 60%
Observable Facts
The author states 'all my jobs for the past 57 years have involved computer programming'—indicating continuous employment access.
No mention of forced labor, unsafe conditions, or unfair compensation appears in the narrative.
The author states 'At 74, I still have no plans to retire or to stop programming'—expressing autonomous choice over work.
Inferences
The 57-year continuous career suggests uninterrupted right to work without systemic barriers.
The celebratory tone affirms the author's positive experience of labor and employment autonomy.
The post itself is a direct exercise of freedom of expression—the author freely shares their career narrative and asks a public question without apparent censorship.
FW Ratio: 60%
Observable Facts
The author published a lengthy personal narrative to a public audience without observed censorship.
The post appears in Ask HN, designed to facilitate questions and open discussion.
The content is clearly attributed to a named user account.
Inferences
The post's existence demonstrates exercised freedom of expression on an uncensored platform.
HN's structural design enables this freedom through open submission and peer discussion.
The author has contributed to scientific and cultural progress through programming advances spanning from Fortran on IBM systems to modern machine learning. Participation in technological advancement is implicit.
FW Ratio: 67%
Observable Facts
The author progressed from 'Fortran II on an IBM 1620' to 'cloud-based big data fraud detection algorithms using machine learning.'
The author's career spans multiple technological revolutions in computing.
Inferences
The author's career demonstrates contribution to advances in computing science and technology.
The author's career progression—from entry-level programmer to data scientist with multiple advanced degrees—suggests maintenance of an adequate standard of living.
FW Ratio: 67%
Observable Facts
The author progressed from programmer to data scientist, indicating career advancement.
Multiple advanced degrees suggest sufficient resources to fund education.
Inferences
Career progression and sustained educational attainment indicate maintenance of adequate living standards.
The author has fulfilled community duties through 57 years of professional contribution—improving systems, advancing technology, and contributing to fraud detection and security.
FW Ratio: 67%
Observable Facts
The author states they developed programs 'mostly to improve the efficiency of order processing and fulfillment'—improving systems for community benefit.
The author's career in fraud detection suggests contribution to social protection.
Inferences
The career demonstrates engagement with community duty through sustained professional contribution to society.
Author's career progression and multiple degrees suggest ability to acquire and own property through lawful means.
FW Ratio: 50%
Observable Facts
The author describes acquiring multiple advanced degrees: 'Master's in Operations Research', 'Master's in Management Science', and 'Graduate Certificates in Big Data Analytics.'
Inferences
The author's educational attainment suggests access to resources and property sufficient to fund advanced degrees.
The statement 'no plans to retire' could suggest limited rest and leisure; however, it is framed as autonomous choice, not coercion. Mild negative score reflects subtle tension regarding work-life balance in old age.
FW Ratio: 50%
Observable Facts
The author states: 'At 74, I still have no plans to retire or to stop programming.'
Inferences
The framing suggests autonomous choice, but implies limited rest/leisure engagement in old age—a potential tension with the right to leisure.