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I just turned 50 in October, and have been coding my entire career plus. I still love and enjoy coding, and feel like I have more to contribute by far than I di

I just turned 50 in October, and have been coding my entire career plus. I still love and enjoy coding, and feel like I have more to contribute by far than I did early in my career. I have founded a smallish dev studio in Cincinnati (Launch Scout) that I started with a few other developers in 2009. I've tried a few different roles as the company has evolved, but eventually realized that I love coding and helping other people get better at coding. Management, organization leadership, etc, are all important but I've had to (with some misgivings at times) allow other people to fill those roles so I can do what I'm really best at. It can be very frustrating to see our industry fail to learn sometimes. I think the lack of TDD being as widely adopted, and the wide embrace of technologies like React that make development incredibly more complex than is necessary are my two big sources of frustration right now. But I still love learning, and love seeing new ways to make things much better. I still love building things. I'm inspired when I remember how my good friend Jim Weirich was actively coding and teaching right up until he passed away. Right now, my hope is to follow in his footsteps. I think there are a few of us who are like minded. A few years back I tried to organize a group I called Geek Geezer Guild. It might be time to resurrect that.

rlawson 3y ago
I love that name. Not sure if Geek Geezer Guild is local only but if you decide to take it online let me know and I'd be happy to help.
- superchris 3y ago
  Actually, it was in person the one time we had it but we brought in the speaker from out of town. It was Glenn Vanderburg, who is is a smart and fabulous human being around my age (possibly a bit older) and he gave a great talk. I'll keep noodling on what the best reincarnation would look like. I think we possibly recorded it, I'll have to try to find it...
latchkey 3y ago
> I just turned 50 in October I'm turning 50 this month and a professional developer since I was about 21-22. > I think the lack of TDD being as widely adopted Hilariously, I just got -4'd (and a whole thread) for asking why someone didn't just write tests, instead of building some half baked tool to debug their websocket app. The responses were all sorts of absurd excuses. I'll happily take the negative karma, cause I know it brings some awareness. (Now I'm getting downvoted again. Oh hn, you crack me up.)
- jasonlotito 3y ago
  I dislike meta posts generally, but I'll give it a go so maybe you learn. > Now I'm getting downvoted again. Oh hn, you crack me up. Because you were whining about down votes. Generally, when I see someone whining about voting, I'll vote down without a second thought, regardless of the content of the post. Why? From the guidelines: "Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading." I know a good number of other people react this way as well. Instead of whining about getting voted up or down, instead, use this as an opportunity to improve your messaging. > I'll happily take the negative karma, cause I know it brings some awareness. Up-voted comments bring more awareness. If you truly cared about bringing awareness to something, you'd want to communicate effectively, and effective communication is critical in our field. Anyways, I generally hate meta comments like this one, but hopefully you have a better understanding of why people are most likely down voting this comment.
  - drewcoo 3y ago
    The first rule of fight club is we don't talk openly about the meta-rules of fight club.
  - latchkey 3y ago
    Great response! That said, my intention wasn't to whine. I truly don't care about the act of getting downvoted. What I was trying to point out is that I was getting downvoted in my original post, because "kids these days" are against the general concept of TDD. That's in response to this OP's comment that I quoted. Why were they against TDD? One person said it was because their CTO made them do 100% test coverage and that caused the startup to fail. Is that the failure of TDD or the failure of the CTO? ;-) Now you're getting downvoted? LOL! For the record, I upvoted you.
- bastardoperator 3y ago
  I'm all about testing especially at the unit level but I've never personally seen TDD implemented successfully. I won't lie, I'll write my code, write my tests, refactor based on new learnings, check coverage stats, and PR for feedback. I'm also 40+ too.

rlawson 3y ago

I love that name. Not sure if Geek Geezer Guild is local only but if you decide to take it online let me know and I'd be happy to help.

superchris 3y ago
Actually, it was in person the one time we had it but we brought in the speaker from out of town. It was Glenn Vanderburg, who is is a smart and fabulous human being around my age (possibly a bit older) and he gave a great talk. I'll keep noodling on what the best reincarnation would look like. I think we possibly recorded it, I'll have to try to find it...

latchkey 3y ago

> I just turned 50 in October I'm turning 50 this month and a professional developer since I was about 21-22. > I think the lack of TDD being as widely adopted Hilariously, I just got -4'd (and a whole thread) for asking why someone didn't just write tests, instead of building some half baked tool to debug their websocket app. The responses were all sorts of absurd excuses. I'll happily take the negative karma, cause I know it brings some awareness. (Now I'm getting downvoted again. Oh hn, you crack me up.)

jasonlotito 3y ago
I dislike meta posts generally, but I'll give it a go so maybe you learn. > Now I'm getting downvoted again. Oh hn, you crack me up. Because you were whining about down votes. Generally, when I see someone whining about voting, I'll vote down without a second thought, regardless of the content of the post. Why? From the guidelines: "Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading." I know a good number of other people react this way as well. Instead of whining about getting voted up or down, instead, use this as an opportunity to improve your messaging. > I'll happily take the negative karma, cause I know it brings some awareness. Up-voted comments bring more awareness. If you truly cared about bringing awareness to something, you'd want to communicate effectively, and effective communication is critical in our field. Anyways, I generally hate meta comments like this one, but hopefully you have a better understanding of why people are most likely down voting this comment.
- drewcoo 3y ago
  The first rule of fight club is we don't talk openly about the meta-rules of fight club.
- latchkey 3y ago
  Great response! That said, my intention wasn't to whine. I truly don't care about the act of getting downvoted. What I was trying to point out is that I was getting downvoted in my original post, because "kids these days" are against the general concept of TDD. That's in response to this OP's comment that I quoted. Why were they against TDD? One person said it was because their CTO made them do 100% test coverage and that caused the startup to fail. Is that the failure of TDD or the failure of the CTO? ;-) Now you're getting downvoted? LOL! For the record, I upvoted you.
bastardoperator 3y ago
I'm all about testing especially at the unit level but I've never personally seen TDD implemented successfully. I won't lie, I'll write my code, write my tests, refactor based on new learnings, check coverage stats, and PR for feedback. I'm also 40+ too.