skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
That’s an ok strategy if you actually want to end up in a loud open office, “crushing it” with 20-something tech ‘bros, failing fast and playing hard. However, I’d guess that most people will see past the “How do you do, fellow kids” disguise.

Embrace the gray beard, find one of those companies that welcomes us geezers, and clearly articulate how our decades of experience translates to business value.
But how you going to explain lack of social media to internal border control?
> to work with younger guys as a 1:1 basis

I wonder if you can expand on this. As I get older, I find myself and my peers confronted with having to answer to younger, often less experienced, stakeholders. What kind of challenges have these presented for you and how have you adapted? What philosophy or attitude should us aging techies adopt as the gap between our peers widens?
The halting problem only tells you that there can be no algorithm to prove this automatically for any given program.

It could still be the case that for all practically relevant programs there is a proof in each case that they are secure, even if there is no automatic way to find it.
The big money question is: How have you managed to stay passionate about your job?

I just posted a comment in another thread about burnout. It's very common in our industry. I believe it's due to the Coolidge Effect. Aka, the brains inherent search for novelty. It's a struggle to not look at almost all programming tasks as just some variation of the same problem, if you've been doing this long enough. How do you keep it interesting enough, to stay passionate?
I don't really get this: what counts as a feature? What counts as a type?

Let's say you're writing a new microservice in C# or Java, you will probably exceed 7-8 new classes/structs/enums/interfaces with just boilerplate and external data model.

Now if you're adding 7-8 new types for a small 1-2 week feature... yeah you should probably think twice.
51 here I'm the CEO, still write code.
I'm sure they'd try. Astroturfing is already illegal and not all that difficult to uncover though.
Can I ask, with 32 years in the business, are you in a management (or less technical) position now, or still 'in the trenches'? Is there a difference in the likelihood of ageism in management roles v developer roles?
So you stole, got caught, and all you did was give the money back and say you'll stop stealing?

If one of their drivers had come to the Instacart office and stolen something, they'd have to do all of the above plus go to jail.

This was a widespread coordinated criminal action and someone should be facing our criminal justice system as a result.
Show HN: Automated WordPress Management and Deployment Dashboard
I'm over 50. I haven't encountered any age discrimination. Then again I don't go looking for it. I'm sure people make judgements about me based on my age and appearance. That's just life.
It happens, it's just not popular. If you're a Caviar courier, you can get paid after each delivery.

https://courierhelp.trycaviar.com/customer/en/portal/article...
Late 50's. React/Redux developer. Always learn new things. Simply ask other developers if a company has a reputation to hire people my age. Most have a reputation to only hire people out of college or a few years older. I just don't waste my time with those companies. Look for small companies which have several people who look like me.
The same for me. That's why I was asking.
> Personally I feel this goes against the spirit of what .eu should stand for

.eu stands for EU, not just generic "europe".
I'm 57. I've seen plenty of age discrimination, but primarily at large companies. Smaller companies don't seem to be nearly as prone to cutting people purely by age. Regardless of company stay current and maintain new skills. After 35 years of only software development, went back to my Electrical Engineering roots and doing hardware development and have developed 3 different boards and wrote the software stack for the boards. Companies that cut solely on age deserve the loss of good experience; their mistake.
How exactly does that work? Person A had an unexpected expense and needs a little help, so we just take it out of the pocket of Person B, who happens to be the nearest wealthy person?
The largest recent change in Python is adding support for type annotations [1].

TypeScript is now the #7 language on GitHub.

Matz has said that a major goal of Ruby 3.0 is optional static types [3].

Facebook has reportedly ported large amounts of their PHP code to Hack, which adds static types to PHP.

[1]: https://docs.python.org/3/library/typing.html

[2]: https://octoverse.github.com/projects#languages

[3]: https://blog.heroku.com/ruby-3-by-3
It took us forever, and it's still (and probably always will be) a work in progress. But a couple key points for us:

- We established a single wiki for our department, and gave teams control of their own spaces. One wiki in one place with full-text search means that if the document exists, you can at least find it.

- We followed that with an organizational mantra: "If it doesn't exist in the wiki, it doesn't exist at all". If you have any kind of docs, they go in the wiki. Crucial to success here was using wiki software that would take Word docs, Excel spreadsheets, graphics, etc. and just attach them to pages and optionally render them. (We used Atlassian Confluence, but YMMV.) This meant that if you had the docs, there was as small as possible an effort involved in placing those in the wiki where others could find them.

- Periodically, we have Friday 'wiki burn-down days', where we buy pizza for the group, huddle in a conference room, and spend the day in the wiki. We write articles, we clean up spaces, we fix up documentation.

- We experimented with having new engineers work with senior ones to write documentation. This was OK in some regards--it did help them be exposed to more things, and encouraged more senior folks to explain things and answer questions to write the articles. But it definitely takes time, and wasn't as useful as an onboarding exercise as we would have liked—depended a lot on how well the senior person could explain it, and how well the junior person knew to ask questions about it.
Probably because you don't need to do things that Node isn't well suited for. If you did, then other languages which did those things well would become useful to you.
Eating more fruit and vegetables 'improves mental wellbeing'
That's an unnecessarily inflammatory way to put it, but yes, there are smarter ways to do this kind of regulation, that involve more "informing the consumer" and less "bad, symptom-of-problem! Go away and the problem is solved!"

In CA several years ago, I checked out a payday loan place for a cash advance, and what surprised me was that, apparently, they suggest a bunch of (cheaper, non-profit) alternatives to using them, and only then approve the loan. I don't know if that's a law that they have to, but that seems like a better way to go about this.

Similarly, like you say, maybe the core problem is bad spending patterns. Posters like to copypasta the Vimes bit about "the poor are poor because they don't have the upfront money to pay 2x for something that will last 10x". Well, if true, maybe mandate that kind of counseling at payday lenders.

Those seem like better ways to address the core problem than banning the practice.
Everyone here is talking about their skillset, and I'm going to take another direction: appearance and interpersonal skills.

There is ageism, yes, but I think a deeper problem is reaction to peoples appearance. If you are late twenties concerned about age, then hide it, starting now.

* Always wear sunscreen when you are outside, regardless of race. It prevents skin aging, and you'll still tan and get Vitamin D regardless.

* Work out: lifting weights and doing cardio have differing goals and match up in interesting ways. Learn them. I do almost 100% pure heavy weight lifting, and I'm actually very thin, despite what I toss around.

* Make sure your clothes fit and look good. Go to a tailor and get one outfit made nice a year for interviews/on-sites (if working remotely) etc.

Taking care of yourself physically might not seem related to a lot of this, but people discriminate in a number of ways, and the more you take away, the better you might do. In addition, two of the above are general health things that you should be doing anyhow.

I forgot about interpersonal skills when I first finished writing this:

* Practice getting people talking about themselves. It's the best way to get people to think that you are interesting. I would argue it's the most important tool in my interpersonal skillset and I've met a ton of interesting people using it.
Context: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-47143135
What I dislike about Pijul is that it entirely fails to sell itself.

Pijul is a product that seeks adoption. I'm a customer. Pitch.

Pijul fails to present me any reason or example for its superiority to the status quo, Git. It only provides vague points like simply claiming to be more "correct". I need to know how my workflow will improve as a result of replacing Git with Pijul.

Sure, you might say that I'm not the target, but as a software developer running my own DevOps product and consultancy company, I don't find that to be the case.

For your specific counter-arguments:

1. Pointing out a corner-case pain point with Git, and simply stating that Pijul will be "correct" is not at all informative. Git has countless pain points, and so will Pijul have. What matters is the 90% experience, not the corner cases.

"A conflicting state is another valid state" does not mean anything to a user. The source is not in a valid state during conflict, and sharing invalid source is not interesting, so this falls under implementation details again.

Merges have pros and cons, which is why Git also has other mechanisms which the users can select, such as rebase.

Again, what one needs to know is how the workflow of a developer is affected, not how beautiful the internal structures may end up being.

2. Ah, a partial checkout and a partial clone differ, at least in Git terminology, which is the status quo at the current time.

However, what people care about is not the ability to perform a partial clone, but the speed of certain operations. If a full clone is fast, the user won't give a damn about partial clones.

Instead, what one should then put as a prominent feature is monorepo capability, and direct performance comparisons between Git and Pijul.

However, do note that Microsoft appears to handle monorepos in Git just fine with GVFS, through partial clones.

Also, the ability to reorder patches without changing their identifier will to many be an anti-feature which might render Pijul a no-go. From a user-perspective, Pijul and Git are both equally capable of reordering patches, Pijul just lacks the ability to easily and uniquely identify an entire tree state.
http://www.seattle.gov/Documents/Departments/Tech/SDOT%20Acy...
Also stealing from their customers. They told us our tips were "100%" going to the shopper. Really, only the percentage that exceeded the base pay was going to the shopper because instacart was reducing their base pay by the amount of the tip. If that's not fraud, I don't know what is.
There is. Basic level of labor is almost always there - people have to work to earn the living (even if you go into crime, you still have to work - maybe you pay taxes to different people and do different things, but you still have to do stuff to earn your money).

However, once you earned enough money, beyond subsistence level, you have a choice - you can spend it all on consumption, or you can defer some of the consumption, or give up a part of it, as an investment, in hope that this would increase your consumption abilities in the future, or you ability to retire, etc. Modern economy would not work without investment - you need massive upfront spending to lift off something like Netflix of the ground, before it starts being profitable.

This investment is, ultimately, financed by people who chose investment over consumption (might be one very rich person, or tens of thousands of not so rich people giving their money to the bank, which in turn loans it to the entrepreneurs, or likely a mix of both). Ensuring this choice remains a viable and attractive one is something that the government would definitely have an incentive to support.
>If the average worker has any stock or index fund investment

we don't
Hundreds of Bounty Hunters Had Access to AT&T, TMobile, and Sprint Location Data
It would be just as easy to implement a process where a tip after-the-fact still reduces the "employee"'s normal pay.. Do just mean, in practice, that's not the way it's normally implemented?
Nonetheless, payday lenders are not exactly making money hand over fist. Predatory practices to recover as much money as possible are, in aggregate, a reflection on the risk profile (i.e. staggering default rate) of these borrowers. Prohibiting these practices with no replacement measures just raises the rate or reduces loan availability.

Realistically, people who can't get even a (legal) payday loan often turn to places where someone breaks your legs when you don't repay.
You can easily use one of many opensource self-hosted temporary email projects with APIs. Just check Github.

Receiving email is pretty easy - own domain with MX record and some cheap VPS with Docker. No need to worry SPF, DKIM, DMARC, DSBL - you care about these when you have to send emails from the host.
A deliberate fix for democracy
Well, since we're talking about US politics doesn't it make sense that "very-left" is relative to the current political climate in the US? To bring it back to the pendulum analogy, if I asked you which way a particular pendulum was swinging would you need information about the current state of other pendulums to answer? I can't tell if you're genuinely unable to comprehend the meaning of the comment you're replying to or just taking a shot.
We're working on fixing it on the highest priority. We were not yet expecting to be on HN!
https://www.reddit.com/r/securitybreach/

Sub-reddit for cataloging breaches with detail relevant to defenders.
It's a bit more complicated than that with harmonized sales tax in 5 of the provinces. So technically in those provinces (such as Ontario) it is indeed a single 13% sales tax and no longer a combination of federal/provincial.

But largely in practice you're correct as even the combined HST varies (13% in Ontario, 15% in the four Atlantic coast provinces).
This is a great example. The launch of Sputnik in 1957 galvanized the US. I started first grade in 1960, and throughout my elementary school years there was a huge emphasis on math and science. We did number theory in 4th grade and started algebra in 5th grade. We had LOTS of science classes. This was at a good but not outstanding public school in a middle class town. It wasn't a magnet school or special in any way. It was considered patriotic to provide the best possible public schools. Unfortunately, that emphasis was not sustained after the 1960s.
Not as old as op but approaching 40 fairly shortly.

Most programming tasks are a variation of the same problem, you realise it, accept it and then realise that the way to write good software is to get decent at the building bit and then work on getting decent at all the other bits around it.

Requirements gathering (aka talking to people and writing down/recoding what they say), testing (hitting things until bits fall off), reliability (making sure things don't break the same way twice), documentation (making sure the poor sod in after you has more to go on than you inherited).

There is a tonne of variation in what the average dev has to do day to day (unless you are a "Here are the requirements, you can change nothing, implement this spec, never question it" dev - in which case I pity you) so the trick is to keep learning in multiple domains when one gets stale rotate to another, variety is as they say the spice of life.
I feel this does not address the question directly. I know passionate, good developers over 50, and they do have hard times on the free market (I can still use 'they' as I'm few years younger). It raises the question - when were you last time actively job hunting?
im older than dirt_

specialty is assembler, firmware and hardware prototyping.
I usually work on contract. The thing with high level stuff is that it is always changing face but never goes past the fact that it all boils down to low level operation of digital devices. If you can work at the level that allows high level language to operate then you have real power and controll, but not the convenience of ready made assembler routines, you have to roll your own firmware, and your own assembler macros. If you are a bonafide OS engineer, firmware engineer, and chip engineer, everyone else is riding your coattails, and you have direct knowledge of how a computer or any other sort of object code device functions.

{adde} after skimming through the comments it helps if you already have a code library of your own. You should be equivalent to a tradesperson with a full set of tools appropriate to the job demands. if you are re-writing code to implement a UART for example thats like an electrician constantly manufacturing a screwdriver on the job.

If you can write a piece of code from memory thats good, but proper preparation before hand is a mark of experience.
Aren't they paid via 1099 (contractor basis) and thus minimum wage is meaningless anyway?
Onoe way you can tell this was no "mistake" is because both companies did it (and probably others). This was industry-wide wage theft in the pursuit of profit.
I ran a successful consulting company where ~90% of our revenue came from professional networking.

If you want something from people (like a job, their time or their money) then you should probably build trust and a connection with those people. That's called networking.
I'm not defending this industry, but I don't think you have all of the facts. These businesses serve people who can't get traditional credit cards and loans. They have massively higher default rates - more like 20%.
Ironically enough, I also have an aftermarket JVC. A very simple 1U tall discless, bluetooth-enabled player that supports Android phones and iPhones via MFi. It works perfectly. In fact, it also works with devices they claim not to support, like an iPad and an old iPod Classic via USB. The best thing about it is that when I go for a drive and need some navigation, I can just plug the iPad in directly via USB, keep it charged, use a map app and listen to music. It also supports keeping two phones connected via bluetooth for calls. So far I've had no issues with it and I've had it for a year now.

I knowingly went for something extremely simple, with MFi support and optional wired access and I haven't regretted it.
Will Free Trade Governments Be Able to Turn Down Tariff Money?
Basically the only rule is: NOBODY (that much younger) will ever know how good or experienced you are. They just can't know. It's impossible for them to be in your shoes, but you CAN put yourself fairly easily in THEIR shoes and work from there...

Don't feel underused or misunderstood etc etc even if you blatantly are. You won't be able to change it anyway, just work with what you have, and use your remaining brain cells to do stuff they CAN'T do: for example learning the next big thing quicker than they will...

Ultimately, it's just tech. it comes, it goes... You've likely seem most of it before anyway...

Also, when you DO find the basket case of someone who is interacting with you like an ass and has no clue about your real value, remember that it's THESE GUYS failings that will ultimately keep you employed to make stuff work in the end :-)
There is still no law against spending your entire paycheck on lotto tickets, nor taking out a loan and spending it entirely on lotto tickets. The government seems to pick and choose what mistakes they allow their citizens to make.
I'm not sure for high CRI. See my comments elsewhere about Ikea otherwise.
Affirmation of the Open Source Definition
Why not just start at the REPL or with a Notebook? Having an interactive environment seems like it would be easier to learn the language. Then they can move to a code editor when they're ready for writing more complex programs.

It's this sort of thing that probably drives the likes of Alan Kay crazy when even learning a language isn't interactive by default.
> I would like to understand how the industry was expected to survive

Why should it survive. It's usury, plain and simple.
Numbers like 1.17 and 1.21 are not roughly two kids, it's half two kids. What wiggle room are we talking here? I was originally responding to someone who said

> On average most woman want two children. But when a lot of them die they will get more (average of 6 around 1800).

and that doesn't seem to be the case.

And you said that culture had nothing to do with it, but clearly the variation in the birth rates (50% to 150% of the ~2) in countries with roughly the same standard of living is due to something.
> Even if we assume the 2016 dollar is worth half as much as the 1960 one because of inflation...

Try one-eighth as much.

http://www.in2013dollars.com/1960-dollars-in-2016

> Converted amount ($100 base) $810.83
I'm 57 and seen plenty of age discrimination, almost exclusively in big companies. Smaller companies don't seem as prone to the practice. Stay current, change as needed. After 35 years of software only, spent the last two years going back to Electrical Engineering roots and developed 3 circuit boards from scratch and developed software for the boards. Large companies that cut solely on age deserve the loss of wisdom and experience.
Ask HN: Can you work as a developer while taking medication for mental illness?
I'm a developer, and I've just realized that I probably have bipolar disorder, and maybe ADHD. (But I should go to a psychologist instead of self-diagnosing.) I go through periods of hypomania where I am extremely productive. I also have periods of depression where I'm not able to concentrate or get anything done.

It has been very difficult for me to hold down a job, or even finishing a big contract project. At my first startup job, I was really struggling to concentrate on my work. I think I ended up getting burned out and lost all motivation, so I had to quit (or I was probably going to get fired.)

I think I've been able to work around my mood swings by doing some freelance projects. I can usually hold it together and finish some work, and then I have a break. It has also been helpful to work 5-10 hours per week, or go full-time for a month or two.

However, I'm currently interviewing for a full-time job with a startup, so I will need to be reasonably productive for extended periods of time. I'll have a manager assigning me tickets to work on, and I'll probably have to work on a lot of really boring things, because that's just how it is when you're an employee. But it's a really awesome opportunity with a high salary, significant equity, and the whole team works remotely. I've also been really struggling to hold it together with contract work and side projects, so I need some stability for a while to build up my savings (and the startup "lottery ticket" would be nice.)

I was listening to a podcast recently where Stephen Fry talked about taking lithium. He said it worked well for him, so I think I would like to try that as well. But I've also heard that some medication can make everything fuzzy, or that it's harder to concentrate and get into the state of "flow".

Are there any developers here who have successfully managed their bipolar disorder with medication, and can still work as a developer?
Late ‘90s, and it was just as hard as today. Applied to dozens of companies as a Senior in undergrad. Similar 1 on 20 response rate as today. I remember the interview—typical “solve this trivial thing in a language of your choice.” Most college kids picked java. I picked x86 assembly and nailed it. In think that impressed someone.