Hiring a software engineer in their late 40s:

Pros:
* Understands your stack better than you do after glancing through the repo for five minutes.
* Will rewrite said stack 2x as fast, and half as buggy if you let them.

Cons:
* Gives zero fucks.
* Knows we're not *really* like family here.
* No, seriously, absolutely zero fucks given.

Do not cite the deep magic to me, product manager, I was there when it was written.

@saramg Wait till you get to your fifties.

@sleepyfox @saramg with regards to that item:

Pros: deletes half of the stack, reducing maintenance costs and making it easier to use . They would delete 90% of it, but know it’s not worth the fight.

Cons: tends to rant on about how they would have done it in ancient languages like Perl/php ;)

@phredmoyer @sleepyfox @saramg
I'm in my 50's; and could I perhaps interest you in Fortran for your next greenfield project?
@sleepyfox @jannem @phredmoyer @saramg came here to write the very same comment. Of course: LISP.
@jannem @phredmoyer @sleepyfox @saramg Back when FORTRAN was not even THREETRAN...

@stonebear @jannem @phredmoyer @sleepyfox @saramg

WATFOR? I ask myself what for? every time I have to use it!

@jannem

* from an alley darkly *

psst, wanna buy some lowercase?

@phredmoyer @sleepyfox @saramg I’m in my twenties, and there isn’t a single system I’ve seen that I couldn’t have written better in Perl.

I would also have deleted 50% of the stack, but no one will let me. So I guess I have to wait until I’m forty.

Pros of staying around that long: I’ll be the one supposed to put up a fight when someone tries to delete 90% of the stack, and I just… 🤔 won’t. 😈

@phredmoyer @sleepyfox @saramg let’s be honest, Perl/php is far too modern. It would really be like Fortran or Lisp

I am 47. Perl is ancient. Last time I had to maintain something written in Perl was about 20 years ago.

@R4_Unit @phredmoyer @sleepyfox @saramg

@hrw @R4_Unit @phredmoyer @sleepyfox @saramg Last time I had to maintain something in #Perl was yesterday. You can keep at it if you’re living right 😁

@R4_Unit

Who are all these poor bastards who were using FORTRAN in the early 90s?

I got to college in 1989 and was promptly taught LISP in the classroom and perl by my friends. JavaScript came along in the early-mid 90s with Netscape and I learned to use it because my alma mater - through whom I was getting my Internet access and personal web presence - wisely didn't allow users to serve arbitrary CGIs, so I had to do all the web automation I wanted client side. The controversy about it was that it was named to horn in on Java's glory, despite having nothing to do with it, and precipitating a full decade plus of confusion in HR departments and placement agencies.

Also C and C++. I knew a guy who did COBOL and made out like a bandit leading up to Y2K.

@phredmoyer @sleepyfox @saramg

@phredmoyer @sleepyfox @saramg

php? I don't like that modern crap. And I'm only in my early 40s

@phredmoyer

What have I ever done to you to be called out like this

@sleepyfox @saramg

@phredmoyer @sleepyfox @saramg "Why didn't you come to the meeting?"

Because I was too busy rewriting this crap.

@phredmoyer @sleepyfox

Perl? 🐫

No, no! I'm in my 20's and I often use Raku instead of Perl. 😻