Archive for February 2010
23
Five Pervasive Myths About Older Software Developers
52 Comments · Posted by Dave in Developers
I recently celebrated my 40th birthday. A friend joked to me, “Hey, guess that means you’re too old to program anymore!” I laughed on the outside, but it gave me pause. Age discrimination is nothing to laugh about in our field. COBOL guys faced this problem years ago as Java guys like me were ascending the ranks, and we laughed heartily about legacy code and their inflexibility with new technology.
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About 12 years ago, I was a member of the Professional Services Group for a C++ tools company. They created a great framework for C++ classes, particularly dates and strings, that really didn’t exist in a standard format at the time. They dominated the market because their tools were second-to-none.
Diablo II (DII) may be an old game but it’s a classic. I’m one of thousands who gave up hours and hours of my life to it. I have very fond memories of those times, staying up late with my friends on the phone, hacking evil monsters to bits, making the world safe again. I think it’s a great form of geek therapy where no matter how bad your day was at work, taking out all the monsters on the Arreat Summit would somehow make things feel right and good in the world.
And with all that time invested in the game, there were a few lessons that are very applicable to real-world software development. With Diablo III now generating a new wave of excitement for Blizzard’s series, I thought I’d share my insights from my favorite game of the early 21st century.
