I'm a self-taught 19-year-old programmer. Coding since 10, dropped out of high-school and got fist job at 15.

In the the early days I was extremely passionate, learning SICP, Algorithms, doing Haskell, C/C++, Rust, Assembly, writing toy compilers/interpreters, tweaking Gentoo/Arch. Even got a lambda tattoo on my arm after learning lambda-calculus and church numerals.

My first job - a company which raised $100,000 on kickstarter. The CEO was a dumb millionaire hippie, who was bored with his money, so he wanted to run a company even though he had no idea what he was doing. He used to talk about how he build our product, even tho he had 0 technical knowledge whatsoever. He was on news a few times which was pretty cringeworthy. The company had only 1 programmer (other than me) who was pretty decent.

We shipped the project, but soon we burned through kickstart money and the sales dried off. Instead of trying to aquire customers (or abandoning the project), boss kept looking for investors, which kept us afloat for an extra year.

Eventually the money dried up, and instead of closing gates, boss decreased our paychecks without our knowledge. He also converted us from full-time employees to "contractors" (also without our knowledge) so he wouldn't have to pay taxes for us. My paycheck decreased by 40% by I still stayed.

One day, I was trying to burn a USB drive, and I did "dd of=/dev/sda" instead of sdb, therefore wiping out our development server. They asked me to stay at company, but I turned in my resignation letter the next day (my highest ever post on reddit was in /r/TIFU).

Next, I found a job at a "finance" company. $50k/year as a 18-year-old. CEO was a good-looking smooth-talker who made few million bucks talking old people into giving him their retirement money.

He claimed he changed his ways, and was now trying to help average folks save money. So far I've been here 8 month and I do not see that happening. He forces me to do sketchy shit, that clearly doesn't have clients best interests in mind.

I am the only developer, and I quickly became a back-end and front-end ninja. 

I switched the company infrastructure from shitty drag+drop website builder, WordPress and shitty Excel macros into a beautiful custom-written python back-end.

Little did I know, this company doesn't need a real programmer. I don't have clear requirements, I get unrealistic deadlines, and boss is too busy to even communicate what he wants from me.

Eventually I sold my soul. I switched parts of it to WordPress, because I was not given enough time to write custom code properly.

For latest project, I switched from using custom React/Material/Sass to using drag+drop TypeForms for surveys.

I used to be an extremist FLOSS Richard Stallman fanboy, but eventually I traded my morals, dreams and ideals for a paycheck. Hey, $50k is not bad, so maybe I shouldn't be complaining? :(

I got addicted to pot for 2 years. Recently I've gotten arrested, and it is honestly one of the best things that ever happened to me. Before I got arrested, I did some freelancing for a mugshot website. In un-related news, my mugshot dissapeared.

I have been sober for 2 month now, and my brain is finally coming back. 

I know average developer hits a wall at around $80k, and then you have to either move into management or have your own business.

After getting sober, I realized that money isn't going to make me happy, and I don't want to manage people. I'm an old-school neck-beard hacker. My true passion is mathematics and physics. I don't want to glue bullshit libraries together. 

I want to write real code, trace kernel bugs, optimize compilers. Albeit, I was boring in the wrong generation.

I've started studying real analysis, brushing up differential equations, and now trying to tackle machine learning and Neural Networks, and understanding the juicy math behind gradient descent.

I don't know what my plan is for the future, but I'll figure it out as long as I have my brain. Maybe I will continue making shitty forms and collect paycheck, while studying mathematics. Maybe I will figure out something else.

But I can't just let my brain rot while chasing money and impressing dumb bosses. If I wait until I get rich to do things I love, my brain will be too far gone at that point. I can't just sell myself out. I'm coming back to my roots.

I still feel like after experiencing industry and pot, I'm a shittier developer than I was at age 15. But my passion is slowly coming back.

Any suggestions from wise ol' neckbeards on how to proceed?

Probably the biggest one in my life.
TL:DR at the bottom

A client wanted to create an online retirement calculator, sounds easy enough , i said sure.

Few days later i get an email with an excel file saying the online version has to work exactly like this and they're on a tight deadline

Having a little experience with excel, i thought eh, what could possibly go wrong, if anything i can take off the calculations from the excel file

I WAS WRONG !!!
17 Sheets, Linking each other, Passing data to each sheet to make the calculation
( Sure they had lot of stuff to calculate, like age, gender, financial group etc etc )

First thing i said to my self was, WHAT THE FREAKING FUCK IS THIS ?, WHAT YEAR IS THIS ?

After messing with it for couple of hours just to get one calculation out of it, i gave up

Thought about making a mysql database with the cell data and making the calculations, but NOOOO.
Whoever made it decided to put each cell a excel calculation ( so even if i manage to get it into a database and recode all the calculations it would be wayyy pass the deadline )

Then i had an epiphany

"What if i could just parse the excel file and get the data ?"
Did a bit of research sure enough there's a php project
( But i think it was outdated and takes about 15-25 seconds to parse, and makes a copy of the original file )

But this seemed like the best option at the time.
So downloaded the library, finished the whole thing, wrote a cron job to delete temporary files, and added a loading spinner for that delay, so people know something is happening
( and had few days to spare )

Sent the demo link to client, they were very happy with it, cause it worked same as their cute little excel file and gave the same result,

It's been live on their website for almost a year now, lot of submissions, no complains
I was feeling bit guilty just after finishing it, cause i could've done better, but not anymore

Sorry for making it so long, to understand the whole thing, you need to know the full story

TL:DR - Replicated the functionality of a 17 sheet excel calculator in php hack-ishly.

You know what? Fuck this shit. We spend most of our life locked down in a school, we are being told facts, tested and stressed for many years with the only hope to get out as soon as possible.
Failing is something that keeps you there indefinitely.
Parents keep pushing on kids to achieve the best and get good grades to have a job.
Then something happens.
You get out of school and what happens?
You start working.
A.k.a modern slavery...
Employers thinks that since you are young they are doing YOU a favor if they decided to hire you.
So you find yourself having to do the same tasks everyone is doing, perhaps you are even fully capable of managing them and get the shit done but guess what!!
You are paid the minimum.
You barely make enough to pay off your rent which keeps you locked away from Holidays abroad, from that huge cake you desperately want.
And guess what! Try to raise your voice and you'll get fired in a Matter of seconds, replaced with someone else which accepts any condition.
You dream of a house, a family and a car but you can't even eat healthy with that salary.
So you are forced to buy cheap and low quality food from the same store again and again till you had enough and spend some days with that horrible feeling...
Calling you to get a job interview feels like they are doing you a favor, they always try to give the minimum possible and expect you to work in a serious manner and respect their deadlines.
Colleagues earn a lot more even though they aren't doing anything different from you.
For the first year you won't have any holiday, let alone traveling or anything different from just staying home for 3 days straight.

Banks won't give you a loan because your job doesn't pay off
The day that your car is broken you struggle to eat the whole month.

On top of that, taxes. Because they aren't taking away enough.

I don't want to live this life, I don't want to become a modern slave and work 8-17 everyday for the rest of my life and retire with a shitty retirement pension that won't probably grant me anything again.

I had enough of this shit.
I don't want to go back to work and pretend to do what I am supposed to do with a smile on my face knowing that I am just a number and that no matter how skilled I am I can always get replaced with N number of people for a lower salary of mine.

I am tired
I dream of a life that I won't ever reach this way.

Today I looked up houses prices and felt like shit.
I will never in my entire life be able to afford something so expensive, let alone buying furnitures and what is needed or what I like.

I dream of having my place, my dog and my family but apparently I am asking too much.

How is this even fair in 2018/2019?

I... I am... Speechless.
I wonder how many people out there are in the same situation or even worse and I can't even wrap my mind around that.

This is just modern slavery.

My boss makes a shit load of money from young people that can't complain because they are threatened and will eventually be replaced...

This is my rant.

A quite normal Windows day:

Bios to Windows: "Go now! Get up!"

Windows to Bios: "Always slow with the young circuit boards."

"I've got something weird on screen."

Windows' answer: "Ignore it first."

Hardware assistant to Windows: "The user puts pressure. He wants me to identify this thing. Could be an ISDN card."

Windows: "Well, well."

Unknown ISDN card to all: "Will you please let me in?"

Network card to intruder: "You can't spread out here!"

Windows: "Quiet in the case! Or I'll cut both their support!"

Device Manager: "Offer compromise. The network card is allowed on Mondays, the ISDN card is on Tuesday."

Graphics card to Windows: "My driver retired yesterday. I'm crashing now."

Windows to graphics card: "When will you be back?"

Graphics card: "Well, not at first."

CD-Rom drive to Windows: "uh, I would have a new driver here..."

Windows: "What's ich´n supposed to do with it?!"

Installation software to Windows: "Leave it, I'll mach´ that already."

Windows: "That's nice to hear."

USB connection to interrupt management: "Alarm! Just been penetrated by a scanner cable. Request response."

Interrupt management: "Where are you coming from?"

USB connection: "I was in the computer right from the start. I'm joined by another colleague."

"You're not on my list." - "Say something."

Windows: "Hopefully there won't be another printer."

Graphics card: "The new driver twitches."

Windows: "We'll just have to get the old one out of retirement."

Uninstall program to new driver: "Go away."

Unwanted driver: "Fuck you."

Windows to Norton Utilities: "Kill him and his brood!"

Utilities to driver rests: "Sorry, we have to delete you."

Important system file: "Arrrrrrgghh!"

Windows on blue screen: "Gib´, the Norton Boys are over the top again."

Blue screen to user: "So, that's it for this week."

Excuse me for stealing your time

And I know it's way too long

Never gonna happen:

* Port our API to graphql. Or even make it just vaguely rest-compliant. Or even just vaguely consistent.
* Migrate from mysql to postgres. Or any sane database.
* Switch codebase from PHP to... well, anything else.
* Teach coworkers to not commit passwords, API keys, etc.
* Teach coworkers to write serious commit messages instead of emoji spam
* Get a silent work environment.
* Get my office to serve better snacks than fermented quinoa spinach bars and raw goat milk kale smoothies
* Find an open source IDE with good framework magic support. Jetbrains, I'll give you my left testicle if you join the light side of the force.
* Buy 2x3 equally sized displays. I'm using 6, but they're various sizes/resolutions.
* Master Rust.
* Finish building my house. I completely replaced the roof, but still have to dig out a cellar (to hide my dead coworkers).
* Repair/replace the foundation of my house (I think Rust is easier)
* Get slim and muscular.

Realistically:

* Get a comfortable salary increase, focus more on platform infrastructure, data design, coaching
* Get fat(ter). Eating, sitting, gaming, coding and sleeping are my hobbies after all.
* Save up for the inevitable mental breakdown-induced retirement.

Does anyone else fantasize about giving up programming and go live in a jungle or doing other things that require more physical effort?

I've been learning carpentry, farming, DIY power generation etc. The goal is to be self-sufficient and go live in a fucking jungle someday. Or legally buy some cheap land far from the city and automate the shit out of it. No wait, I'll just live there as a normal farmer and write code if I feel nostalgic or something.

I think anyone other than me could have expressed that better.

So at the end of last month our complete team was fired because restructuring in the company. We have had this countdown running since the first day we got the news. Ive made this photo yesterday so only 3 days and a few hours to go and then a month of sitting on the bench at my work (Im a consultant and work on project basis for other companies)

Goal for my dev career future?

I'll soon be 53, my career goal is to make it to retirement without fired for some random biz-talk excuse for being too old.

Soooo I think I have finally come to the point that I may have to create a YouTube channel, to teach software engineering from the ground up... and teach it the way the universities and everyone else should be teaching it, so that they have a solid foundation.... throwing hello world, and loops and variables at folks out of the box without any of the environment context or low level embedded register, even logic gate understanding

That lack of understanding is why, soooo many college students and younger folks, are actually pretty shitty engineers. Everything is high level languages and theoretical concepts to them. Nothing practical, that’s why there’s sooo many python and java developers that can’t for the life of them understand memory management, low level hardware interfacing etc, because the colleges don’t teach it the way it use to be taught.

I seriously fear 30 years from now or sooner when there are few embedded engineers only left till retirement, as without those folks the whole pyramid of electronics falls to pieces.

Java, C#, python, all that shit don’t run on the bare metal... there’s this magical layer of C, and assembler that does all the work just so folks can abstract their thoughts.

Either 1 of two situations will happen.. price of electronics will rise because the embedded guys are few and far between therefore salaries skyrocket... OR everything starts running shit like java on the metal, where there are a over abundance of developers, their salaries will be low because there are soo many but the processing power, space, and energy needed to run java natively causes electronics cost to increase

but regardless 30 years from now if those script kiddies are building everything I fear it cuz there’s gonna be memory leaks, and overflow issues everywhere.. shit be blowing up more than 4th of July.. lol

Soooo in effort to prevent that and keep the embedded engineers up, or atleast properly educate the script kiddies, I’m gonna make that YouTube channel.. 1 maybe 2 videos a week, 1-2 hours sessions each.. starting at the fucken ground and building up.

I just quit. And retired early.

Talk with a co-worker who has a bit of a motivational problem.

Him: if I had more fun, I would be more productive.
Me: you're not here for fun, that's why they pay us.
Him: how are you motivated?
Me: by money.

...

A bit later.

Him: do you plan for retirement some day?
Me: no. By then, there won't be retirement anymore. We will eat fried rats in the street.

He starts understanding why I'm wearing black metal shirts.

!rant

Many dev ranting that apple is reached $1T by selling stupid connector's...... and other shit.

I am not apple product owner.

But Today I want to salute steve jobs.
A person without college degree,drug addiction,guilt of adopted son,financial issue's without any god father........................

Created one company.

Kicked out from own company.

Joinned again.

developed such policy in company that every one should follow.

took retirement due to cancer and all right's transfer to A Gay CEO.

and
now that company reached $1T.

Really fucking motivational thing.
Nothing is impossible.

Pour one out for our last VMS/Alpha computers heading to the great bit bucket in the sky.

Was decent hardware in it's day, 20 years ago, but we now run EC2 instances that are faster. 🙃

Dev: *walks into therapy office*
Therapist: what's the problem?
Dev: I'm a developer in a retirement home
Therapist: MARTHA CALL 911!!!

My family (dad, mom and I) runs a software business. Things were going decent when I was in college, and just as I was about to finish college, it went slightly bad due to lack of some technical insight. So I figured, I had the knowledge to do so, and joined in the family business as my first job. When I joined, I found out that things were worse that what I expected, (lack of processes in the company to handle day to day business). But we took a year to fix it and solve issues. But during this year, while the company finally runs as a proper company, we went into some serious debt to keep it running, as we were expecting it to get resolved soon. But now, although the company is structurally fine, the sales have seriously dropped. This has us cornered and we aren't able to do anything. We are seriously considering shutting the company down.

Which is not the worst part. The worst part is the debt. Since I, was a part of the company too, I am equally responsible for paying it off. And now, due to both my parents hitting the retirement age, I will be the only one repaying it. I really don't want to invest an estimated 8-10 years of my life living very modestly and spending a large (70-80%) of my income in repaying this.

I don't even know what to do, and things just seem very hopeless for me. Looking for any advice anyone has.

I guess if I had a bit more experience in the real world, I would be better at dealing with this, but I'm literally just 1 year out of my college.

I think my MacBook Pro from early 2011 is ready for retirement 😔 froze two times today during gaming...

1. take a web application working in somebody computer since 4 years with tons of features.
2. Believe that the application is the future and solve brilliantly a general market need.
3. multiply income of current only customer by 10: you are going to be rich.
3. start to install 2, 3 customers.
4. discover the application is shit. Doesn't solve well the problem. Functionalities are different for each customer
5. discover that customers are willing to pay 1/10th of the original customer
6. quickly reingeneer the application to a multitenant cloud application, because with 3 customers and different versions you are already in deep shit
7. keep giving away the application for free to flagship customers. With a lot of customisation developed for free.
8. reach 200 customers in 5 years and still no break even, but lot of debts
9. resort to financial tricks to keep the company going

Luckily money are not mine. They could be recovered.
Unluckily the time spent was mine. It couldn't be recovered
Hope that the application will finally crash so that I can move on to the next thing: retirement in a mental asylum

After a day like this I try to look at the positive side; that another day has passed and it's only 11.278 days left until retirement

401(k)?

More like 404(k) Retirement not found

Tuesdays at work suck. This is something I've put a lot of thought into.

Take Monday for instance, we love to hate him, when it comes to Mondays we all know the score we tell Monday where he can go and he takes that and owns it. He knows we hate him and we all know where we stand.

Wednesday is hump day, not great but we know we're halfway through the week. Thursday gets us a little excited cos we can see the end of the week.

Friday is the one we've been waiting for and we love him, Saturday and Sunday are bliss.

Tuesday... What's Tuesday got? It's just a day, there's nothing going on with Tuesdays.

Well except this week, in the UK we had Monday off as a statutory vacation, so this week, this week Tuesday is the day we love to hate, he's now got all this beginning of the week rage directed at him. The other days are unaffected, Thursday and Friday still have their thing, Wednesday still marks the half way point.

Monday has buggered off and let Tuesday be something for a day, I don't think he can take it. If he could Monday would probably go into retirement. Monday probably has more hatred directed towards it than Katie Hopkins (and that's saying something).

In short, no, no I do not want to get out of bed and go to work today, but I will, cos that's just what we do, but fuck you Tuesday.

Fuck you with a bag of spanners...

...Sideways...

...With habanero sauce...

... And a pineapple.

This new job has more work than I can possibly complete in a day, week, or month. Deadlines pile up and I’m thoroughly exhausted all weekend. My mind feels lethargic and dull. People around me seem to be getting stuff done and I feel like I’m making too many mistakes and holding everyone back. Not sure I can stick with this job for the long haul to retirement. But freelancing absolutely sucks because nobody wants to pay you enough to feed yourself and it doesn’t scale to a full time salary for me. I simply don’t have the mental capacity to do the equivalent of four peoples’ jobs to design, code, QA, launch, and do all the digital marketing, advertising, writing, and maintenance for enough sites to make up my salary.

welcome to the first day of the rest of your life

🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡

First dev job is my current one.

I'm a software engineer in test, writing automated UI tests for web and mobile apps.

Its pretty great. I work from home with flexible hours. I have a boss but he doesnt manage my dev team, he just checks in to make sure I'm getting support, training and have all my questions answered. My dev team is myself and 2 other people, both of which are cool, and all the work is dev-driven.

Might just stay here until retirement, that sounds easy.

Does anyone else feel that "retirement" is an outdated concept? Our generation will probably never truly retire, not in the same sense that this word meant in 20th century.

Considering how much the government-mandated retirement age went up; most of us will prolly die from continuous stress way before the day of "retirement" comes

Anyone else out there feel useless as a programmer? By that I mean you have always struggled to solve problems quickly and effectively. Or to fully understand the language and typical patterns and algorithms. Or to retain in memory all the things you need to “just know” on a daily basis to avoid having to look them up regularly and look foolish or incompetent? It seems I can’t keep my mind focused on learning, whether by tutorials or hands-on practice. I should probably just switch careers, but I’m so close to retirement that it seems stupid to attempt such a thing. Am I alone?

Well, this week was a week from hell. It was a short 3 day week, and all of my internal Customers, who are normally pretty reasonable, just all unloaded on me at the same time. "We need this now!" "Have you done this?" "Why didn't you do that?" "We need you to do this, because our migration takes place in 30 minutes." (first notice of the migration). And then to top everything off, I'm creating a rollback DDL, and I've spent a couple of hours pulling my hair out, because a set of columns that need rolled back aren't in Prod, so I can't roll them back, because my own DDL drops them, and broadcast my natural meltdown to the entire DevOps team, feeling like an utter jackass after I realize my mistake. And even at quitting time, they are still walking up, and texting, and emailing. Holy f**k, I'm only going to be gone four days, two of them weekend, and will be back. All of this while trying to sell my house and pack boxes and move to an apartment. Can I retire now? Looks at retirement account... Nope, I'll be working until I'm 95. Just shoot me already!

you know, i've got 5K+ in cash savings before i would even need to dip into "long term" retirement funds

and other than the food and the drink, i don't spend anything (can scrape by on 1-2K per month)

so fuck it, i'm going to enjoy the amazing weather that is everywhere in europe right now

if companies are going to be assholes, i am too

because in the long run i know my skills and vast competances are valuable

companies can hire the cheap clueless scrub in the shortrun

but i know i'll win in the long run when they realize who they are trying to hire does not exist

what's even one year of being unemployed against a lifetime of opportunity and projects? nothing.

Things I wish I knew when I was younger:
- no matter how clean your teeth are, bad breath won't go away until you clean your tongue. Buy a tongue cleaner and use it after you brush your teeth
- whitening toothpastes don't work, while desensitizing ones work well.
- after you brush your teeth, spit but do NOT rinse!
- when brushing your teeth, keep the toothbrush angled 45 degrees. The bristle ends should touch the area where your gums meet your teeth.
- use sunscreen every morning.
- don't waste money on acne-treating products unless they contain salicylic acid, benzoyl peroxide, tretinoin or adapalene.
- if you want to lose weight, you have to eat MORE, not less. But, that “more” should be protein.
- showering every morning feels like “humanity restored” thing from Dark Souls. Also, clean your damn room and wash your damn windows.
- APS-C DSLR cameras make no sense. For their weight, you can get a full-frame camera, and for their price you can get an APS-C mirrorless cam that will be way lighter.
- If you want a damn thing, save up and buy that damn thing. Don't buy the alternative thing you don't want. You'll be asking “what if” till you either die or buy the original damn thing.
- people aren't replaceable, but many people can fit their designated role. Not being able to replace your ex-boyfriend with his exact copy doesn't mean no one else can be your boyfriend.
- try a MacBook & iPhone as soon as you can to check whether it's your thing or not, because if it is, oh boy are you in for a treat.
- added sugar is evil, but it's beneficial for the economy. It makes you fat, so you need a car, so you buy fuel. Also, you feel guilty because you're fat, so you buy diet products & things to compensate because you hate your reflection in the mirror. You also pay medical fees to treat your newly developed health problems, and you die a day before retirement. Everyone makes a buck on you eating added sugar but you.
- you can use the freshly removed sticker to remove the sticky residue left by that same sticker.
- static typing doesn't solve jack shit.

!dev

When your retirement estimates says no matter what, you'll be earning more than you do now when you retire...

As a teacher myself, I will always advice young people to go to school. Though I imagine it differs on the quality of education in your country.

I live in the Netherlands and here it's quite good overall. It's no Ivy League and there are plenty of exceptions but overall any technical study here is a good study.

I also teach at a small school (220 software engineering students) so I actually know my students and what generally need to get ahead.

But my main reasons for actually doing a study instead of going the self-taught route:

1. You spend +/- 4 years in presence of peers that are more or less in the same life phase as you are. You will make friends for life.
2. Companies value a diploma. Good for you that you landed a job on your 19th. Just wait until your 25, wanna switch jobs and don't even get to the second round of any application process because your CV does not list a diploma. This might change in the future but not for the next 5-10 years.
3. You will learn foundational stuff about most thing IT-related. Some things you'll never use. Some thing you'll use unknowingly every single day
4. It teaches discipline without major impact on your life if you fail something. OK, you failed a course. So what? Take it next year and take the time to do a side-project or internship during your study delays. It will teach you some life lessons without it costing you a job or your life savings, and you get some extra time to learn as well!
5. Retirement age by the time you retire will be 75. There's plenty of time to work. Why not spend 4 years with peers in a relatively safe and fun environment first?

TL;DR - small schools are actually fun, attend one

Our project manager is a past-retirement-age consultant who prefers to communicate the old-fashioned way, which is to physically pop in to my office asking questions about stuff that isn't even urgent and could easily be dealt with in jira or by e-mail FFS. Way to go disrupting a dev, break my flow and deprive me of my joy of working! He even says it himself: "May I disturb?" My answer is "No, but now that you already did, spit it out!" He's a nice and funny guy, I give him that. But I don't like this particular behaviour of his. I've complained to him directly and also to my boss, but to no avail. This is where devRant comes in, to let the steam out. Anyway, if I have it my way, we will definitely *not* be hiring the same consultant for our next project.

Work on a large project that was interesting with total job security until retirement

Step-dad: "Just remember us when your a rockstar programmer. *cough* retirement *cough*"

Man...

Why is it by any means helpful to know whether the ENIAC had 1 000 000 vacuum tubes, or not? (Spoiler: it had far less)

We have this fucking inevitable optional c(o)urse for the last year and last semester at my Uni, called History of Computer Science. It would be totally fine, if we had learnt something really useful, or at least something really close to general knowledge, but no... Instead we should fucking know, who wasn't part of the team designing the ENIAC from a list of 6 people.

I guess our teacher should really go and rest as she is way over the minimum retirement age... and this is way below my expectations about our teachers being on the academic level...

I've been working as a developer for 10 years now... I got my first software development job when I was still learning for my masters.

After all this time I have switched programming languages and product types a few times from web development to mobile apps to desktop software (C++, CEF, QT,).

And I have come to the conclusion that I want early retirement... like right now retirement... I'm done dealing with management that doesn't understand shit... dealing with people we have outsourced part of the shit to... needing to fix stuff that is broken after some other person refactored the code and didn't fully test it and it somehow got approved... dealing with people that think that "know better" and implemented things like that 5 years ago because they thought like "THAT" and will not accept my merge request because of that.

Like don't get me wrong I love to make and develop software, but since this is the 3rd job in the row with a toxic environment like this I feel like I need to move to the country side and open up a farm or something :|

I don’t love to code. It kinda sucks, TBH. I love to make money and get closer to a hopefully early retirement. Coding is only part of how I’m getting there.

Was just (once again) nearly run over on a pedestrian crossing. This time by an angry-looking old fart in his pick-up. He probably didn't even see me, and he didn't react in any way when I swinged my fist at him and yelled "Maniac!". These angry-looking old farts in their pick-ups are far too common a sight in this country. Those old dung heads drive in their sleep, not seeing anything, not hearing anything and not caring shit about anything. Stop driving already, go to a retirement home and stay there!

I think today makes a new record for the number of times I have muttered "What in the actual FUCK is going on with this stupid WordPress plugin/theme/database/etc.?!"

I know. I know. I chose this life. It's my own fault. Don't bother with the anti-WordPress beatdowns in the comments. I've heard every. last. one. and I'm too old and too close to retirement to want to start over again with something else.

I'm at that point again where I question whether I want to still do computer stuff for work, but this time I kinda want to do part-time computer work and part-time physical work instead..

If my body is this bad when I'm not even 30, I wonder how I can do this sedentary job until retirement..

F@#!k my year,

After a year long Mobile app project finally shipped where I served **two lead roles (UX design and mobile dev)**; I had my status meeting with my manager to discuss my next phase of my career. To which I was told I would be promoted to Chief or partner level at my workplace, if shipped on time, which we did.

The response I got was unsettling, I've been asked to "step down" from my architect role and join our innovation sales team since it was discovered I also have an MBA. So much so my skip level manager cut off all my dev licenses week of release. 🤣

The overall need was for me to oversee H1B and contractor resources moving forward on new engagements, as I was now "too expensive". I like coding, but it doesn't sit well with me at all...

Our customer accrues vacation time in January. The retirees will take all of their vacation starting in January and retire when they get back. This year, their ops teams have multiple retirees. Some software we support now runs on abandoned servers.

My coworker had something go seriously wrong in the financial software over Christmas and there is nobody to call to help him access or fix the running application.

Just threw a retirement party for a senior member in our software development department. He was in the company for 30+ years. He came back 3 months later to work, said “Need more money”... awkward

This is more of an essay than a rant. TLDR at the end. I simply can't choose from all the shitty lecturers I've had, so I'm going to have to go through them one by one. But of background. I'm currently in 7th year of college, I did a multimedia degree in 2 years, a intro course to Software Dev and I'm currently in my final year of my Software Dev degree. So let's start.

Intro Software Course
- we had a database module, which was thought by, I shit you not, the head of the psychology course in the college, she attempted to teach us Databases using access. And not even using SQL, using access GUI components and it's query builder. Need I say more?

1st year software dev
- We had a networking module, the guy that taught the labs, he literally didn't say more than 12 words the entire 12 week semester, his answer to any question you asked him was a grunt and "research it"

- We had a psychology module, I have no fucking idea why, but instead of learning something useful we were told to read this and get in touch with your feelings...

- database module. Yes we actually did SQL here, 12 weeks of select statements and normal form, talked about by a guy in a monotone voice, who sounded like he was contemplating bringing in an assault riffle some day. Also instead of using MySQL he decided to use Ingres. Why I will never know.

2nd Year Software Dev
- We had a module called Algorithms and Data Structures. The lecturer gave us problems she couldn't solve. Simple problems. She was also crazy. Absolutely nuts.

- Object Orientated Programming. I had this lecturer for 3 semesters up until 3rd year. This guy did COBOLT in college, graduated in the 70s or something and went straight into teaching, he taught us Java for nearly 2 years. He literally copied and pasted texts from PDFs and read through them in class. He told myself and another guy at one stage he really didn't care, and was just counting down the days to his retirement.

- Databases again, different lecturer from 1st year, taught us for 2 semesters (24 weeks) and somehow managed to teach us nothing.

3rd Year Software Dev
- software engineering.. This is where the biggest cunt I've ever met was introduced. He arrives into class 15 minutes late every time without fail, talks shit about stuff that has no relevancy to the topic at all, tries to turn everything into a rugby metaphor and every time you ask a question he somehow dodges it and swiftly changes topic. This cunts past profession? A Project Manager. Fucking typical. This dickhead has also thought me 2 other modules.

4th yr Software Dev
- El cunto mentioned above for 2 more modules. Need I say more.
- real time systems, this module took the piss, the module was written by the lecturer which is what earns his space here. Assignments given to us, which required more time to do than we had in labs so we had to work at home, the problem we that is we were using an obscure RTOS called OS9 which would only work on the college computers. When brought to the lecturers attention he just said "figure it out"

Internet of Things - There was 2 lecturers, each lecturer seemingly working off a different plan, one week you'd have one lecturer, the next would be the other one going on about something completely different and unrelated to anything else we'd done.

Some lecturers didn't even make this list as I couldn't be bothered trying to think back about how shit other ones were. These were the ones that always stood out in my mind.

My main take away point from this is that you go to college for the paper which says you have a degree. Learning things that are going to benefit you in a career is up to yourself.

TLDR; 90% of my college lectures were shit. You need to learn useful stuff yourself.

I keep seeing news story after news story talking about the progress we’re making in AI and how there are not enough developers to fill the jobs in demand for it. I tossed my alternate career choice of aerospace over two decades ago because there were no interesting career paths in what I was capable of doing (not much because I suck at math). And here I am 22 years deep into a Web Dev career that I feel is going to be completely obsolete well before my retirement age. I either need to do the impossible and get good at advanced math so I can even understand the very basics of AI or I need to win the lottery.

This is a paradox question, because it describes a devs retirement

Im 22, serious question...is there a way i could make enough money to retire by 30 and live off of it until im 90? Like there has to be something if i invest in would make me not need to work anymore.

What do you guys think is the proper retirement age for a dev , i am thinking 35 to 40 for me
Can’t continue working for other companies after that

Alright guys, I need some advice now from you..

My employer is super impressed with my worked and they are willing to relocate me to the US (Seattle).

As you all are aware that I am actively trying to move out of my country but lately have realised that no matter what, it's home.

Also, I am way to close to my mother and don't want to leave her alone for an extended period of time as both my parents are ageing and I cannot be a selfish fuck to ignore them during their last phase of life.

I want to make the most to spend time with them.

Some key points that I need help with
- I am more inclined towards the UK/EU than US
- Need to spend time with parents/family
- Need to secure some cash for some key life moments

Some challenges:
- Cannot take parents along because they'd not be able to settle for more than 1.5 month outside for various reasons
- If I am moving out, why shouldn't I go to a place I love than a place I don't?

Some plans:
Plan A: Move to Seattle (6 months) > FAANG > Get a high paying high in India (all this in 2 year duration) > Settle down > Periodically travel Europe and explore hobbies

Plan B: Move to Seattle (6 months) > FAANG (optional) > Find a job in the UK/EU (4.5 year duration) > Fullfill EU dreams > Get a high paying job in India > Settle > Continue exploring hobbies

Plan C: Stay in India with current company (6 months) > IJP or EJP to the UK/EU (5 year duration) > Fullfill EU dreams > Get a high paying job in India > Settle > Continue exploring hobbies

I need to pick one while keeping in my that I can spend more time with parents and fullfill my dreams as well. I am confident that money will follow and I'll save enough for my retirement. Willing to trade off some extremely high paying jobs for a happier lifestyle.

This question is for the 25-40 years age range.

Are you making an effort to save up for retirement? Or do you have a plan in place for that?

With COVID going on, we're pretty much stuck at home, so

Vacation = staycation = early retirement

I took off 2wks ago, going back to work next week but it actually felt pretty nice.

Not having to really care about anything or rush to any schedule.

So yes maybe give it a try. Just do whatever it if you imagine yourself doing in retirement.

The difference is your body isn't old and disabled so you can actually do it.

Vitruvian man of the modern age:
- Right hand: iPhone 15 Pro Max with TikTok autoscrolling feed
- Left hand: cramming junk food into mouth
- Heart area: acute guilt
- Belly area: dangerous amount of visceral fat
- Wallet: zero dollars zero cents, plus seven maxed out credit cards
- Wardrobe: come on, who am I kidding. Let’s try again:
- A pile of clothes near the bed: overpriced fast fashion bought to compensate the guilt
- Lifespan: dying right before retirement, so they don’t have to pay you a penny back.
They got everything figured out. Every aspect of your life is profitable to someone. The system is perfect and very beneficial to everyone but yourself.

Hey,
I studied law first and got a retraining about Java from my company for 6 months (just very basic concepts about servers, databse,.. besides java). I really enjoy programming now and that is what I want to do. Do you guys think I need to study computer science to become a good programmer or to change my employer (payment here is really moderate ~ 30k € max ,after taxes, but safe work and good payment after retirement) ? Is there any international certification that should be enough ? Just dont know if it could be a waste of time, becouse I am at a spot to just get practical experience.
Any opinions of you pros ?

Big thanks in advance :)

My space key is not coming back once i clicked . Served like 10 years. It deserve better end than this. damn it guys we lost him. He was so close to retirement. Just this morning he said to me " I am too tired of this board". Its fairwell brother.

What, according to you, is the average retirement age of a computer/software engineer?

"Ultimate" success for a dev?

I don't know what that would be, so I'll be answering that around my experience.

Start really poor, so when you start making good money, you value and appreciate it.
Work for a company (Startup/MNC doesn't matter), and build your network with people/clients.
Work really hard in the beginning era and fail as much as possible.
Quit said company and build your own client-base, cutting the middle men out of the equation.
Work on your terms after that, remotely obviously.
Years down the line, come up with your own idea and start a company which makes enough money to retire with ease, not worrying about saving up for retirement.

So I've got this old external hard drive that's on the verge of retirement. I bought a new one to move the content of the old one to, but it's a lot of data. (1+ TB)

Does anyone know of a good program that can do that reliably?

Been working long hours and 6-day weeks for not much gain these days. At this rate, I think I will likely end up poor after working myself toward an early grave. My retirement fund actually looks kinda nice when combined with family wealth inherited or that may be inherited sometime in the next 20 years. But the high taxation that’s coming, inflation, and public debt problems that will feed inflation spirals will way more than halve my net worth by the time I am old enough to retire. At that point, I won’t be suicidal but I will be praying to die before I run out of money. From what I see of the local homeless population we try to help, being dead is preferable to sleeping on the street.

I have been tasked with planning a feature retirement.
Basically the plan is to move this feature to another plan where it makes more sense and is more stable.
Now we don't have any data on how many or which customers are using this. And I need to plan a migration for them.
Fun times ahead...

Dear Thieves.
So I was looking at some guy who's job I designed today.
He was sitting there with the new laptop I bought during one visit here.
It was an hp with a silver keyboard and handrest because supposedly normal people stopped owning laptops when you all decided to embrace schizophrenia and create inane rather stupid meanings that are associated with literally everything but sense or sophistication.

comparing oneself to an animal for example doesn't focus on positive or spiritual values, its something perverse.

ordering food is not about enjoying new things or savoring flavors, its about something perverse.

going to school is not to learn things, its to crash and burn later because the powers that be refuse to update the system from the 1970s.

living, is not living at all, but working to pay bills and get old bitter and fat.

well.

shit.

retards.

anyway. doesn't explain people like myself who made things when we could and were enthusiastic about our jobs at points.

oh. and supposedly the guy who stole the job was 'I".... and it was a job that would become 'outmoded'......
i believe that was the word often used. let;s check. yup, close enough.

then all these people talking about 'new' jobs because noone could trust the group of monsters they made with too much spare time. since you know. they thought it was funny to steal human beings lives since they were not human. subhuman.

anyway.

where suddenly everything meant something else and a whole new world of retarded people emerged from the shadows because the trash children of a former generation got sick of being lectured about morality when they were in fact just bad people who should have been shot.

i don't care how else the whiney bastards explain themselves. i really don't.

you can say that in desperate fucked situations involving psychological torture, rape, etc that a decent person *raises their hand* might do TERRIBLE things to their captors in order to escape, but THEY caused that while whining that someone from the 1940s or earlier made them evil and they had no choice but to steal jobs, money, retirement funds, public institutions, the morals of a generation, i'll bite: toddlers, spread their legs like psycho whores to get pregnant, so steal people's unborn children, turn every fund available that could have gone towards people that needed things to money laundering and in general gleefully fucked our whole country up with the lack of foresight that psychopaths commonly display.

great job.
was it worth dying ?

how about going crazy and letting another group of evil people make an excuse to drive everyone into an endless idiotic loop ?

but hey no, keep lying. works so well.
well at least fedora 37 is released again.

give the stolen photos back.
just want to know what i looked like, and don't want to talk like a retard to get people who understand english to pretend they finally comprehend.

fucking bastards.