I first learned how to program in 1984 at 14. The tech press said I'd be obsolete by 25, due to age.
About 1990 tech press said the Japanese were building fifth generation computers to make me obsolete.
In 2000, the dot com bubble bursting was said to make me obsolete.
There's been neural networks, no-code, and more, since then, to make me obsolete.
Now it's LLMs.
Excuse me while I sit here and don't panic.
EDIT: This blew up. Muting the thread for some peace and quiet.
@liw I'm not going to lie; to me this time *feels* different.
I learned to program at about the same time you did, though I was younger then. And it might not *be* different; I might just be easier to worry now.
@datarama @liw I'm of three minds myself: maybe LLMs will take over (whether they're any better or not, the history of programming is full of such mistakes); maybe they'll fall by the wayside; maybe they'll become a useful tool, in effect the next step in the evolution of programming languages, but with skilled programmers still needed.
I'm also at the point where I can retire whenever I want, and perhaps that is just as well.
@datarama @liw Yeah, were I 20 years younger I'd be worried too.
(But I'm an unusual case--no kids, no mortgage, high savings rate. A dozen years ago I was concerned with the stability of my job, checked with my financial advisor, and discovered I'd have been OK even had I stopped working for keeps then. Would that everyone was in that position.)
@datarama @liw I forgot to mention no car! I do have three cats, but they don't cost nearly as much as kids.
It will not surprise you that I am on the spectrum too. My late wife was probably borderline.
It was really freeing to me when I wised up and asked the financial advisor. (And was glad I already had one, courtesy of my credit union.) Heartily recommended if available. Fed him my current assets and amounts of the several pensions I had pending, highballed a guess of how much I'd want to spend per month, he plugged the numbers into a program that made reasonable assumptions about inflation and computed I'd be OK until at least age 90. Likely much longer now.
That leaves the problem of boredom/feeling useful--I enjoy my work and that I am helping people who deserve it. (I work at a university.) But I've developed enough other interests that I ought to be OK, and tested it some years back when I got burned out and took several years off working.
In any case I hope you find a comfortabler solution.
@oclsc @liw I don't have a lot of savings (currently I've focused everything on paying off the rest of my apartment as soon as at all possible), and won't be able to draw on my pensions for a long time (retirement age in my country is 70).
If I can latch on to my current job for just 3 more years I should be able to finish paying off my apartment, and then my expenses will be very low.
(I have one lizard, and he costs even less than a cat.)
@datarama @liw I hope there isn't.
Suggestion re financial projections is because I was worried, for other reasons, and realized I could get an objective opinion to tell me whether the worry was justified. As a lifelong Aspie with anxiety problems I recommend that tactic.
In the earlier burnout, I felt trapped in a job that was burning me out; no energy to look for another. What can I do, I wondered? I can't just quit, can I? Then I realized that was a question I could answer, by looking at my then-current savings and my spending rate. Turns out I could. So I did.
Not recommending you quit, of course, just trying to find objective measures of whether and how much to worry.
@oclsc @liw I never really made "big bucks". Devs where I live aren't paid anywhere near what the Internet tells me American ones are (I'm not complaining; I'm comfortably middle class and make more than I spend). I spent ten years teaching CS at a community college rather than working in industry (with much less pay) - so, I don't have a large pile of savings.
But, well, I know I can live where I currently do on less than half of what I currently make (because I've done that in the past). I could also remortgage the apartment if need be.
To be completely honest, it's more the loss of identity that bothers me than it's economic anxiety alone. I spent pretty much my whole life on programming.
@datarama @liw I hear you. Felt somewhat in that direction during my burnout, though not as strongly as it sounds like you do. And my wife was subject life-long to depression, occasionally severe and multi-year.
The big thing to watch out for is inertia--just sitting around being unable to start things. If you can get up and start doing anything at all it will help. I'm in moderate burnout right now (spent all of 2025 caring for my dying wife) so this is top of mind for me.
If it helps, I am convinced that really creative pursuits will survive, as long as you're doing it for its own sake and not because you want others to be impressed. A good friend is a really skilled amateur photographer as well as a now-retired programmer and sysadmin, and he's not worried at all.
But it depends on the setting. You need to find what works for you. A therapist is a good resource.
@oclsc @liw Aside from programming, I've played bass and modular synths, I've made pixel art, I've drawn with pencils on paper, I've written short fiction - but at the moment I can't shake the overarching dread that AI is making it all pointless. So I deleted all my personal-project code and destroyed my drawings (which was perhaps a dumb thing to do, but - well, deep depression.) The inertia phase is what I've dealt with these last few years. I've *mostly* kept myself able to work my actual job (though I've had to go on sick leave a couple times), but everything else feels pointless now.
I think I'm just fundamentally not cut out for the world they're building now, to be honest.
(And programming has sort of had a special place for me. It's the only activity I've ever known that kept enough of my brain active that some stupid hindbrain process doesn't spin off into a loop that goes to terribly dark places.)
Lars Wirzenius
datarama
Norman Wilson