I just turned 40, have been paid to figure out problems since 1994 and have been programming since Logo and original Microsoft Basic existed. Some languages are Asembly, COBOL, C, C++, C#, VB 6.0, VB.NET, PHP, Pearl have created IOS apps, Windows Phone apps, windows desktop apps, web apps, have written async http posts using plain old Javascript until my fingers bled in the 90's, now using JQuery, worked with ColdFusion, classic ASP, MVC, XML and JSON. On the database side I have worked with Oracle, Microsoft SQL extensively, mySQL. Numerous Windows OS, Linux, Mac OS X, Unix. Bought some older 2003 Cisco Routers to learn their IOS, have installed databases, operating systems, financial systems (Hyperion). Have created Web services that serve numerous UI's such as Apple IOS, windows mobile os, web apps, other web services, desktop apps (SaaS). This list could go on and on. Have designed and implemented countless systems -- that all went to production in some form -- and all worked for the companies that used them. Worked in the original Cloud - ASP or Application Service Provider. Not many posts have brought me out of my cave but it's good to know from Geezer that i'm not old. I don't feel old and I guess that the Anonymous Coward said it right: older developers are one of two things: a wizard or burnt out. I have worked with many older burnt out and useless guys my age. They still have all the knowledge within them, the only thing is they have no spark, no desire to continue to learn or continue to innovate or, sadly, to continue to contribute. I call them the working welfare. My opinion of older wizards is this: We will be around working until we die. The current systems that are getting abstracted away by the slick UI's aren't helping the new generation of programmers with the underlying hardware and software. I wrote a compiler for part of my undergraduate degree (a two class series using AST (Abstract Syntax Tree's) using lex, yacc, in C++). Found out later that class was made optional for later graduates. As the curriculum standards are lowered so will be the graduates ability to handle stress or workload. All my interview questions start with: What's your passion? The candidate's truthful answer will tell you all you need to know.

The War of Art. This book deals with why we hold back on our inner creativity. Why are you holding back on yours? Don't limit yourself by defining yourself by the number of promotions you have or haven't received. Read the book then get creative and get inspired and promote yourself!

The last sentence has it: "As long as you find some little "loop" like that where you actually have fun all the time while learning, chances are good you will end up knowing quite a lot about how to program." [...] where you actually have fun [...] That's the key. Have fun and the years will pass, you will want to keep learning to feed the fun. This social media revolution is not helping at all keeping those who are introverted interested enough to learn how to program and keep at it: they may just be coming out of their shell and getting social, leaving the coding by the wayside.

I made a similar transition and my furious pace and insistence on sub 300 millisecond response times for any query, or web page load was foreign to those in the OLAP world. I would submit a query to our OLAP (I was doing pricing optimization—cool enough) which took over 60 minutes to get a useable dataset. Most of the people I worked with were very nice and extremely bright though they existed on a very relaxed pace; one I just couldn’t adjust to. I had such a tough time of it I moved back to the OLTP world where someone would listen to my insistence, enjoy my furious pace and manic persona and I couldn’t be happier. Do give it a try though. It is very rewarding to be able to analyze all a company’s data and write one query that will help generate more profit. I do wish you well and just remember to slow down.

Without movie special effects, Tolkien used the best special effects machine ever produced. The Human mind. I have read these books numerous times during my pre-teen, teen years and into adulthood. The detail never ceased to amaze me as well as the images conjured in my head. He was a master!

When it comes time to step up, it should be out of necessity and not motivated by looking for a bigger paycheck, title or corner office. First off I admire you for voicing your questions and asking for feedback. That is a great tool and shows you will be a good manager/leader. Not everyone knows everything. Even ants can show you a thing or two (if you take the time to watch them walk and form a pathway). So good for you! You are off to a good start. Hopefully you have been working in some capacity already leading others through your example and hard work if not in title and overall power position in the company. Influence and power can be gained in many ways some direct (title, position, evil deeds, evil politics) and many others indirect and subtle that take months if not years to cultivate and create your own world within the group you reside that gains you trust and respect. If you are shifting groups or being thrust into a very different group or path like quitting smoking from one day to the next, expect headaches and difficulties as everyone adjusts to the new variable (you) in the mix. If your life changes little and you are able to continue to build on existing relationships within the company given a slightly more formal voice and more decision making power, then you are in the right place. If it feels good it is good. It doesn't take someone with a title of VP to effect change in an organization. The engineers also have amazing energy and ideas and if given a voice can enable change like no other. Your new role is to guide all that raw energy to a fruitful end. A new equation would be P = E*I where Product = Energy * Ideas where your input and your leadership is the multiplication operator (which you overload and make into your own operation) and the energy and ideas are that of you and your team. The end result will be a product that when delivered to the operations department (Sales, Marketing, etc.) will result in O(P) = M where O is operations acting as a function on your product P resulting in M or money where the company sees profits and you will all have succeeded. On a side note once I asked a friend of mine who is the VP of software development at a medical device company what is fulfilling about her role given the number of meetings, phone calls, emails and organizational headaches she faces daily. She answered me with a question: “Do you have children?” I answered Yes. She asked another question: “Are you happy when someone gives your child a present?” Yes I replied. “I am very happy when someone gives my child a present. I feel and can see their happiness very directly.” She replied, “That is what a manager’s role is. Enabling your subordinates to succeed and relishing in their success and happiness.” “That,” she said, “Fulfills me.” Does it mean if you don’t have children you will be a horrible manager? No, you just need to learn that your new role will not have as many individual successes (as you did when you were an engineer) but rather group success based on other’s achievement guided by you in your new role. Good luck.

Flash is gone from all my machines. The thing is the kids play Club Penguin....requires flash. Transcender is used to study for tests....requires flash. Illustrators that work at big firms (who are the folks that draw whatever they want and it looks insanely good) ask about HTML5 and how it will replace flash. They are concerned that the design will be in the hands of the programmers when told that the final implementation will be in the programmers hands not the look and feel, they are not comforted. Mobile Flash's demise has led to a huge concern among regular web flash designers. IMHO flash may be on its way out but it is very far from dead, still very much in use today, and it has some foot steps that will take HTML5 a long time to fill (if ever): illustrators ceding power to the programmers.

It’s about the code. Remember back to when you started coding, with the problems to solve and the complexity of learning the language (C, Assembly, C++, COBOL, etc.). After some time with the language you knew the structure and the semantics. You knew the compiler or assembler error output was not necessarily on the line. You learned to look up and down 20 or so lines. You relied on your skill for debugging, viewing the variables in memory and remembering that those register variables are the tricky ones. With Assembler you took the time to know exactly the architecture you were working on as the code would only work on those registers and chip. The evolution you made in training your brain and the euphoria you enjoyed when, after failing numerous times, you succeeded to successfully output the array in reverse, the lowercase alphabet to uppercase, prove the bubble sort was truly o(n^2) and see and feel what computer science means in the abstract, theory, practical and concrete. Take yourself back to those days when you were solving problems as you have been doing so for much of your career. Find problems to solve using new tools and new ideas. That invigorates your creativity. The tool to express your creativity and solve those problems happens to be code. Other tools you use on a daily basis to solve problems are speech, listening, etc. Coding is a very sharp and precise scalpel that allows you (the coder) to pinpoint the problem and quickly and immediately solve it. Once you have the problem solved, yes CRUD is most likely the case but for any enterprise application all the wrappers are needed, logging, exception handling, etc., so your application or algorithm can withstand the rigors of a production life. I once had a Physics professor who would pace back and forth and numerous times over the course of his class he would lament that he was not Gauss and had not invented his electromagnetic theory. This man was a brilliant PhD Physics professor who lost his way. From your short story it sounds like you also have lost your way. I do wish you luck finding the passion for a career that you so love and are exceedingly good at.

We are in a new era. Largely ushered in by Mr. Jobs' company. No it's not the internet, no it's definitely not music, video, apps, games. You're probably thinking mobile devices and your wrong. It's communication. Apple has redefined how we humans communicate to each other, to ourselves and to our computers. Are you ready for Siri?

You've just described the past 10 years of my life. I have been a contractor working non stop for folks who have very good communication skills and can talk the talk but not walk the walk. My phone hasn't stopped ringing. Once you get a reputation for doing good quality work and being technically proficient you become the goto guy. I'm super lazy and do what it takes to make my life easier. Those people with less technical skills than I make my life easy by handling all the other details I don't want to. I actually don't mind those who know what they don't know. It's those who pretend are the worst.

I have been on the road for 3 weeks using iPhone 4 daily for over an hour after work talking and interacting with my family. My 4 year old calls me and says "Daddy we're almost home so we can FaceTime." He knows WiFi is required and we only have that at home. Whatever hotel I'm in I make sure I have wifi and if not I bring my AirPort Express to set up the wifi. I do have to reboot the iPhone sometimes before the video works but here's the real reason to use a mobile solution: My family was working on the backyard and they could show me what they were doing. It was awesome. Also my little ones would show me what they are playing with and I would show them the hotel room I was currently in and it was just so much more like being there and not having to be stuck with a 6-8 pound laptop on my chest. It kept me sane and I highly recommend it for anyone with a family in an extended work situation away from home. The little ones forget so easy what you look like / and they are SO much more engaged with conversation when they are stimulated with their eyes and ears. My conversations before with just voice were like (literally): Hi Dad. Hi love you how are you. Good. What's new. Nothing. Bye Dad. It really sucked and there was no bonding. This way the bond was kept and interestingly enough made stronger cause when I got back on Friday my little one said, Dad I wish you go back again. I said why. He said so you can bring me more presents and we can do FaceTime. It was priceless.

So I got a 286 from my uncle when I was like 21 years old. It had 4MB RAM 30MB HD couldn't execute in protected memory so everything was command line. I spent countless hours figuring out this thing called DOS. I looked at debug and figured it out. Got some books on assembly, read them and created a 50 page printout of code that was a simple screen saver that simply swapped the current screen for whatever I wanted. It felt good, powerful to be able to manipulate this machine to do as I wish. So now I'm older still programming an loving every minute. Languages come and go but good fundamentals will always help. Those are: Never give up (majority of CS problems are solvable. Most problems cause us humans to give up way before we should. Keep at it.). Use a search engine (someone's done it before you just need to figure out how to do it now) Get your hands dirty. (nothing like compiling and testing and seeing what happens) This is a profession that is always changing, always something new to learn and never gets boring. If you like stable sure things this is not for you. Dynamic, slightly ADD, multitask like crazy, get easily bored. those are the traits.