Programmers: Before you turn 40, get a plan B (2009)
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Submission timeline
2007–2026One slot for every year since HN launched. Height is that year's peak points; orange marks a 100+ point or 50+ comment breakout. Select a bar to open its strongest thread.
First comments on top threads
HN comment orderI'm not sure I'm buying that. The JVM ? Still rocking it 20 years after. Memory allocations pattern ? Still there. The network stack ? Well, doesn't seem to have changed a lot. The older guys, they seem like they had the time to correctly learn the unix network tools, the jvm debugging ones, the memory inspection ones. I've known older devs for which I have the utmost respect because I felt like they can just debug the shit out…
Somehow I can't equate myself to my age number, 46. In 25 years there has never been a moment when I wasn't in love with learning the latest cutting edge tech. Over the years it's been so much fun... ...to progress from the BBC B to pascal on the mac to pc's to unix boxes to c cgi scripts to perl to php to mySQL to flash actionscript to ruby to javascript to noSQL to node to socket.io to html5…
Disclaimer: I didn't read the full article. I can't stomach these types of "career strategy" articles anymore. This approach to life in general is very misguided (maybe less so if you just want a career to fulfill other goals), but for those who want to pursue a more idealistic life, just pursue your passions. Plan B is being an improv comedian. Plan B is writing the great American novel. Plan B is traveling the world as a war correspondent. I…
The real problem is that as an "older" programmer (50) I am probably the best I have been, but I no longer believe in the missions of pretty much any company, I'm not interested in the silly ways the companies try to build their culture with toys and trinkets and blankets and rituals and sparkles and phony constructs designed to create workplace as a funpark. I am diplomatic, so I would of course keep all this a secret - I…
The first top-level comment from each of the four biggest threads, in HN’s own order. Excerpts are shortened; open a comment for full context.
- Breakout years
- 4
- Total points
- 1036
- Total comments
- 926
100+ points or 50+ comments
reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking
reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking
Every submission
| Date | Title as submitted | By | Points | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2009-06-10 | Programmers: Before you turn 40, get a plan BFirst breakout | jerryji | 110 | 112 |
| 2014-05-15 | Programmers: Before you turn 40, get a plan B (2009) | pvdm | 3 | 0 |
| 2015-04-12 | Programmers: Before you turn 40, get a plan B (2009) | dsiegel2275 | 351 | 289 |
| 2018-04-26 | Programmers: Before you turn 40, get a plan B (2009) | dsiegel2275 | 107 | 89 |
| 2019-07-30 | Programmers: Before you turn 40, get a plan B (2009)Hall induction | gtirloni | 4 | 1 |
| 2019-08-02 | Programmers: Before you turn 40, get a plan B (2009)Best thread · Latest 20+ point return | derwiki | 452 | 430 |
| 2021-03-02 | Programmers: Before you turn 40, get a plan B | generichuman | 5 | 2 |
| 2024-03-21 | Programmers: Before you turn 40, get a plan B (2009) | talonx | 4 | 3 |