Huge bellies, size 36 pants, and being out of breath from going up a flight of stairs are the results of being over 40. They are the results of being out of shape. Even wrinkles at 40 to a certain extent are the result of lifestyle choices.

I was in good shape in my 20s too and it would be a lie to say I "feel" better now than I did then. Personally I wouldn't mind having my 25 year old body back but even at 50 I've still got more speed and stamina that a lot of twenty somethings. And frankly, learning has continued well beyond that age. There's a lot of stupid things I did back then and I've got more skills.

In 2007 there was a 4Gig iPhone that was $499. The $599 model was 8 Gig.

6.1 million original iPhones were sold in spite of the shortcomings you mentioned.

iPhone sales surpassed blackberry sales for the first time in the 4th quarter of 2008, - less than a year and 1/2 after it had been introduced. Overtaking a market leader within 18 months is pretty remarkable, especially considering Apple had never sold a phone before.

Bill Gates recognized the threat right away. RIM didn't and has never recovered.

I'm not sure the Apple Watch is going to have the same level of success. The smart phone solved a real problem by combining a cellphone with a PDA, and an MP3 player, - two or three devices that many people were carrying. The iPhone was a better implementation of the smart phone than what had existed at the time.

The Smart Watch doesn't solve those kinds of problems except for perhaps people who carry fitness gadgets with them.

The "cheap" Apple Watch is $350. You really think it's only worth $35? You're right though, they aren't waterproof but they are water resistant enough that they can be submerged in 3 ft of water for 30 minutes without suffering damage. That means you can safely wash dishes with it on or even take a shower. Swimming would be something I would avoid.

An Apple Watch that's suitable for more dressy occasions is going to cost close to $600 but hopefully 3rd parties will sell some nicer bands that will be compatible with the aluminum version.

I have a cell phone and a watch. It's a nice diver's watch with a mechanical rotating ring that functions as a timer. It cost be about $250 if I remember right. The watch is almost always with me. The phone is not. I don't want to fish a phone out of my pocket or retrieve it from wherever I happened to leave it just to check the time. If a watch can quickly and easily provide me with more information, - all the better.

To me the biggest problem with the Apple Watch is the short battery life. It may not be Apple's smart watch that ends up being the big success but when smart watches can function independently from phones, the battery life improves, and the cost comes down, they will be extremely popular.

Think about Smart Home products a little bit. There's way too much reliance on phone apps for them to be very convenient, - but if you could control things in your house via a watch?, - that's a big improvement.

I hear this sort of claim all the time but I'm not sure how true it is. For example, my organization seems to have difficulty finding mechanical engineers. So for the first time we are going through the hoops to go the H1-B route. And there are many hoops. It is probably not a big deal for companies that hire a lot of them but it is if you haven't done it before.

One hoop is that notification that you're hiring an H1-B worker has to be posted in your office with the salary that you are offering them. I don't know what all of our engineers make, but I can tell you that the offer is in the range of what we are paying them. It could be on the low end of the range, I don't know for sure. It is definitely not 10% of the going rate.

The Apple Watch has a water resistance rating of IPX7 which means that it can be submerged in 3 feet of water for 30 minutes and it will still work. Washing dishes aren't going to hurt it.

I can't really say I'm in the market for something like the Apple Watch, - not at its current price, but to me a watch is a much preferable platform for some tasks than a phone, - getting the time being the obvious example. I don't want to drag out my phone for every little thing. I have an armband for running or riding with a smart phone but I don't like it. It's a hassle. A watch makes a lot more sense. That fact that a phone can perform all these tasks is besides the point.

The 18 hour battery life is something that I think will be a problem. That makes it a ton less convenient than a regular watch. This is a bigger problem than the price in my mind. If you're into fitness at all, the price isn't so bad for something that incorporates a heart rate monitor and other fitness related apps.

I used to joke with my wife that when I turned 40 I'd have to grow a ponytail to still be considered relevant as a programmer. My 40th birthday was a decade ago and I haven't had to grow the ponytail yet.

The book "Decline and Fall of the American Programmer" was written in 1992. The author got it wrong because he didn't understand how the Internet, smart phones, and now "smart everything" were going to push software into so much of our lives. He was wrong in 1992 and you can find slashdot articles saying pretty much the same thing in the early 2000s. They were wrong too.

How long will software people be in demand? Who can say? Based on the last 50 years or so the demand has been pretty good (with some downturns here and there). Yes, ageism is a danger and yes you may find yourself with skills no longer needed, but looking forward there aren't many vocation choices that don't involve some sort of risk.

If you're good at it, keep your skills fresh, and pick good companies to work for, you can make a career out of it. Having other skills doesn't hurt either.

While I don't think that a huge emphasis on coding for kids (who aren't otherwise interested) is a good idea, they should definitely get some exposure to it. Just like they should get exposure to art, music, literature, or even robotics. I also believe that there are huge opportunities for those who can combine programming with expertise in another field.

I have a son who is in his early teens. He really has no idea what wants to do for a living yet and that's fine. He has a vague notion that he might want to do something with computers. He's a reasonably smart kid but I don't think that's his calling. He's kinda sorta interested in electronics and will mess around with Lego Mindstorms with some prompting. He's had a little experience with programming but doesn't have nearly the excitement over it that I did at his age. Still, I've encouraged him to take a one semester course at his high school. I think that will tell him if coding is something he wants to pursue further or not, even as a hobby.

Their eyes wouldn't glaze over looking at this?

write.table(rbind.fill(lapply(list.files("."), read.delim)), sep="\t")

That's a lot of operations to complete a simple task. Here's an alternative for DOS if you don't like linux:

copy /b *.txt newfile.txt

I'm sure it could be accomplished in a more straight forward manor in powershell too. I guess I just don't find it a compelling example of how R can increase your productivity. I see it as an example of code that's not very readable. ;) Now, I don't remember enough R to know that if the files have headers and the columns are in a different order in each file if that command would automatically put them together with the columns sorted out. That may be something R could do easier than other scripting languages.

Though lots of people never venture into the world of the terminal, it's actually easy to explain what it does and how to use it, - simpler to explain than what all the windows in RStudio are for.

It sounded like the article was pushing a career in data analytics using R as a tool as much as anything else. Those people might have a longer shelf life than a typical programmer but yeah, they should be ready to move on to something else before R starts to become irrelevant. It's hard to know when that will happen. It's already been around a long time and seems to be getting more popular.

If the files are all already tab delimited wouldn't it be easier to concatenate them together from the command line like this?

cat *txt > all.txt

Otherwise, I'm not sure it's a great choice. For the typical business person who's interested in coding you might as well start with VBA in Excel or Google Apps Script if you've moved away from MS Office to Google's business apps. Google Apps Script is javascript based so you have the advantage of learning something that has other applications.

R is very good at manipulating and plotting data but the charts produced aren't always of the highest quality. They're fine for internal use. There are lots of packages to extend the usefulness of the language but at its heart and soul it's about numbers and plots. It's not really a general purpose language. Just keep that in mind.

Apparently the zealots didn't understand agile very well or they would have been able to answer your questions.

Agile doesn't mean there is no plan. Agile just acknowledges that the larger the set of requirements and the longer the timeline, the less likely it is that those requirements are going to be accurate (or won't change) and that the timeline will be met.

So rather than trying to establish all the requirements up front and then delivering when all those requirements have been completed, the idea is to focus on a minimal set of requirements in each cycle or iteration. Cycles are short, - a month at most. Prioritization is key.

Do you have or have you ever had teenagers? Here is my real world experience: "Learn hard lesson. Do the same stupid thing the next day."

You may be content to trust that a hormone engorged and not fully developed brain will remember to shut the garage door. I'd prefer a little insurance.

As for the rest of your comments, I could quite easily survive on the technology that was around in the 60's when I was born, but I recognize that technology can both make things better and make them worse. I see having the door unlock automatically as I approach with an armful of stuff as a helpful application of technology.

Not taking medications at the right time in the proper dosage is a huge problem for seniors. The blister pack can't flash or sound an alarm when it's past time to take the meds. It can't notify a caretaker/relative/friend if a senior has missed one or more scheduled times. It can't stop someone from taking the morning and lunch time meds together if they are not supposed to but they forgot in the morning.

Went went through this with my mom about 6 years ago. She was starting to suffer from Alzheimer's but we wanted to keep in her own home if possible. At the same time we couldn't have someone with her 24 hours a day.

We had an automated pill dispenser at the time that came with a dialup service that was quite expensive. It was difficult to set up and the notifications had to go through a 3rd party and was not very flexible. Even with those limitations and caveats it was much better then a blister pack. And what is possible today could be so much better.

Actually I see a lot of potential for smart homes to help people lead more independent lives further into their old age.

Kid leaves garage door open, stuff gets stolen over night
A/C comes on while windows/doors are open
I'm on vacation, water leak floods home
Forget to lock doors when leaving house
Forget to turn off lights in an unoccupied room
Walk up to the house with an arm full of stuff and the door is locked
Aging person has lots of medications but frequently forgets to take them or can't remember if they did


All it takes is a little imagination to realize how automation could solve problems and make things more convenient. Usability, expense, data privacy, standards are all issues that need to be tackled but it will happen.