On reading this article, I realised that maybe the most noticeable change that experience brings to a developer is... laziness?
When I was 24, I was pretty much exactly this person. "Building a spreadsheet engine that runs in a browser. Sounds like so much fun!" And then I'd slog away at it for a month and get something working.
Now though, with age, I know I can't chug away coffee working late into the night. My back hurts when I have to sit too long. My wrists aren't being too kind to me these days either.
Now if someone asked me to build Excel I'd first laugh in their face. And if I don't see them smiling, I'd ask if they can afford any of these A,B,C...Z COTS products that are doing this that we can just buy. And if none of those work out, I'd look for how I can take something like ethercalc and repurpose it for our use case.
Looks like the older I get, rather than writing code, I seem to be getting more adept at how not to write it.
When I was 24, I was pretty much exactly this person. "Building a spreadsheet engine that runs in a browser. Sounds like so much fun!" And then I'd slog away at it for a month and get something working.
Now though, with age, I know I can't chug away coffee working late into the night. My back hurts when I have to sit too long. My wrists aren't being too kind to me these days either.
Now if someone asked me to build Excel I'd first laugh in their face. And if I don't see them smiling, I'd ask if they can afford any of these A,B,C...Z COTS products that are doing this that we can just buy. And if none of those work out, I'd look for how I can take something like ethercalc and repurpose it for our use case.
Looks like the older I get, rather than writing code, I seem to be getting more adept at how not to write it.