Retired techies, are you still engaged in tech?

[Animorph]

Electrical engineer with a lot of C/C++ programming. Part of my retirement motivation was worry about drifting off during meetings and not paying attention. Probably not helped by thinking about FIRE. I used to be able to sit for hours programming, with a mental model of the entire program structure in my head. My brain just doesn't do that anymore. So its not that fun now.

I turned our house into a smart house, all the switches and remote controls, plus smart anything else that looked useful. I have implemented some automations for it, so some very simple programming. I added a NAS as a media server and local backup drive. We both drive Teslas. Seems like I might have reached the limits of what I can maintain at this point. So the next step might be seeing what comes along to simplify all this stuff, kind of like my recent portfolio moves.

 

[CaptTom]

Sounds like we're all over the place on this one. That's good.

Me? I still dabble in things I like. Setting up a smart home gets me into the hardware and process control side of things, which is a nice break after decades doing business IT. I putter around a few web sites I still maintain.

I find myself no longer the family "help desk" for tech stuff. My brother-in-law inherited that job, and I don't miss it. I don't need to keep up on all the latest languages, versions, IDKs and methodologies, and that's nice too. I do sort of miss the real old days when we coded down on the bare silicone. Never was a huge fan of high-level languages with so many layers of abstraction that the coder has no clue what the program is actually doing.

I've always been a jack of all trades, so my IT projects are just one part of the stuff I'm always working on around the house or boat, or helping around someone else's house, boat or RV.

 

[twaddle]

For you bare-silicon code-jocks, have you played with Arduino or modern MCU's much? Embedded systems with a nice accessible IDE. The same IDE supports the ESP32 family, which includes WiFi for IoT applications.

One level of complexity higher is the Raspberry Pi, which runs linux but still exposes all the I/O pins for low-level hacking.

There are dev boards in the $2-$40 range. Betcha you can't get just one.

 

[boilerman]

After getting my Computer Science degree, I spent 15 years in software development and then another 20 years working my way into a middle management position for a large defense contractor.

I really loved programming. So I thought that after FIRE at age 56, I’d try my hand at developing some smart phone app. But 3+ years later, I’m busy playing softball, pickleball and golf, traveling (before COVID) and doing so many things I never had time for when working. So, no - the closest I’ve gotten to programming since FIRE is the programming for my thermostat. And since DW is always either hot or cold, I’m must be failing at that!

 

[jollystomper]

For you bare-silicon code-jocks, have you played with Arduino or modern MCU's much? Embedded systems with a nice accessible IDE. The same IDE supports the ESP32 family, which includes WiFi for IoT applications.

One level of complexity higher is the Raspberry Pi, which runs linux but still exposes all the I/O pins for low-level hacking.

There are dev boards in the $2-$40 range. Betcha you can't get just one.

This is one my "I should try this" list . I started looking into the applicability of using this to build a home temperature monitoring environment. putting devices in various rooms reporting back to a central server. But then I discovered javascript code to programmatically capture info from an Ambient Weather station and its temperature devices, so I took the lazy, easy way out for now .

 

[Ready]

I started my career in tech as a network design engineer. I left IT 20 years ago but I still enjoy playing with tech products. Iphone, IPad, Apple Watch, Mac, robot vacuums, Teslas, and lots of home automation stuff.

Lately I’ve been trying to tackle simple electrical stuff around the house like installing smart dimmer switches. I was never good at the electrical side of this stuff so it’s been challenging to learn but I’m getting there very slowly.

 

[twaddle]

I was never good at the electrical side of this stuff so it’s been challenging to learn but I’m getting there very slowly.

This is where being retired really pays off IMO. I have explored a bunch of areas with no RoI pressure or fear of failure.

Prior to retirement, I had zero experience with CAD and CAM, for example. The learning curve is a tough climb, but now I literally design stuff daily.

As an aside, this is kind of a game changer for the handyman. Instead of searching the hardware store for some unobtainable replacement part, you just CAD it up and 3D print a replacement.

 

[Freedom56]

I have no desire to code or do any digital design after 35 years in the industry. Once in a while I will troubleshoot and repair electronic circuits that fail around the house and keep all our PCs (3 desktops, 3 laptops) operational. I spend a lot of time playing with my synthesizers in my home recording studio.

 

[Blue_Bird]

Electrical engineer with a lot of C/C++ programming....

I don't know when you started in your career, but I had a dream a few nights ago that had me erasing a resistor value and changing it to a 4.7K OHM on the vellum original, filling out an ECO card and then picking up a still-wet copy with that sinus clearing vapor as my boss is paging me on the company PA. Good times, LOL. Of course I was wearing a white shirt and tie with my pocket protector..

 

[Vincenzo Corleone]

After playing the PhD physicist game for most of my adult life I have a happily non-intellectual retirement. I bike, hike and play around in the metal shop. None of these requires an IQ higher than room temperature.

That might explain why I don't engage in those particular activities

Not that anyone cares, but - to be clear - that was an attempt at self-deprecating humor rather than a claim of intellectual superiority.

 

[pjigar]

I am a technical sales engineer in EE but coding is my hobby. I don't develop any production software but mostly scripting and/or modifying existing code based on my personal needs. I have "hacked" various devices over the years to fit my needs and built some on general purpose development boards. Mostly embedded systems and no graphics (except once). But mostly, I am a tinkerer rather than developer for both hardware and software.

 

[braumeister]

I was never a professional coder, but I did my share of it as part of my job. Quit entirely when I retired, but got intrigued by apps on my iPhone a year or two ago. Downloaded Xcode and Swift from Apple, and found it remarkably easy to learn. Developed a few simple apps just for my own amusement and sideloaded them on my phone. Great fun but hardly serious tech stuff.

 

[Bullwinkle]

Interesting to see so many people into music, since that's what I'd like to do when I have the time. In my case, it's DSP and physical modeling, but I would also like to get better at playing instruments. Because music software and music is pretty much never going make money, especially the kind I like to do, it seems suited for post-work.

Lots of people talk about the rate of change in the industry, and I don't doubt it's true for many, but it doesn't feel that way to me. My screen has looked like a bunch of xterms with vi in them since the 90s. Many other things have changed of course (this web browser for instance), but the work environment is still xterms and vi, which is a well worn sofa by now. If I had started with punch cards I'm sure it would be a different story, but X11 in 1995 looks pretty much the same as X11 in 2021, it just fits more xterms! Even macs have become devices to run the mac equivalent of xterms.

 

[CaptTom]

For you bare-silicon code-jocks, have you played with Arduino or modern MCU's much? Embedded systems with a nice accessible IDE. The same IDE supports the ESP32 family, which includes WiFi for IoT applications.

One level of complexity higher is the Raspberry Pi, which runs linux but still exposes all the I/O pins for low-level hacking.

There are dev boards in the $2-$40 range. Betcha you can't get just one.

I have five ESP9266's sitting next to me, with matching temperature probes, and the Ardinio IDE all loaded and tested. That project is currently on the back burner, but I can see all kinds of possibilities!

My Home Assistant hub runs on a Raspberry Pi. Steep learning curve for an old Mainframe/Windows guy, but it's nice to do something different.

 

[twaddle]

My screen has looked like a bunch of xterms with vi in them since the 90s.

I've been on the internet since 1981-ish. Started with a terminal (via a VT100 emulator I wrote) talking to a VAX-11/780 running Unix.

I mention this only because I now have a Pi Zero running Linux that's always on. I ssh into it fairly often, and it's like wearing warm slippers.

BTW, a Pi Zero, as puny and weak as it is, benchmarks at something like 500 VAX MIPS. Quite a bit snappier than that old 11/780.

Also, related to ER, I have a bunch of old savings bonds. I wanted to calculate current value, and I discovered that the old Windows-based savings bond calculator was no longer available or supported.

I discovered unix-based gbonds, installed the debian package on my Pi Zero, fired it up via a VNC, and I'm a happy ER camper thanks to ancient technology.

 

[GTFan]

After 20+ yrs of coding, no desire to do it after retiring 11 yrs ago. Great career, but I'm a lot more interested in other things now.

This is me, got into PCs in the early 80s and got a great job coding/sysadmin at MegaCorp for 25 years. Mostly C/C++, Java, and shell scripting. That was enough. I still fix PCs for family every now and again and am always the tech guru but have no desire to code anymore.

 

[Animorph]

I don't know when you started in your career, but I had a dream a few nights ago that had me erasing a resistor value and changing it to a 4.7K OHM on the vellum original, filling out an ECO card and then picking up a still-wet copy with that sinus clearing vapor as my boss is paging me on the company PA. Good times, LOL. Of course I was wearing a white shirt and tie with my pocket protector..

I started in 1977. All of that existed but I didn't do a whole lot of blueprints.

 

[Bullwinkle]

I've been on the internet since 1981-ish. Started with a terminal (via a VT100 emulator I wrote) talking to a VAX-11/780 running Unix.

...

Also, related to ER, I have a bunch of old savings bonds. I wanted to calculate current value, and I discovered that the old Windows-based savings bond calculator was no longer available or supported.

I discovered unix-based gbonds, installed the debian package on my Pi Zero, fired it up via a VNC, and I'm a happy ER camper thanks to ancient technology.

Very cool, I started much later, I used IRIX over a modem back in the day. The first time I installed linux from a bunch of floppies on a 486, it was amazing how the letters came back as soon as I typed them. And instead of waiting for GNU screen to repaint the screen line by line, I could flip between virtual terminals instantly. I pretty much instantly forgot how to use ed and went to vi full time

Also maybe relevant for fellow terminal nerds, for tracking expenses I use hledger, which is derived from the similar ledger, which is a text-oriented bookkeeping system. I get CSVs from the bank, a script converts to ledger format and categorizes them, changes get checked into git, and then I can query finances from the command line.

 

[BoodaGazelle]

Software developer for 38 years. In the last few years, it had changed so much as to be almost unrecognizable. One of the killers was when one of our Indian contractors admitted to me that they cheat on the interviews (pretending to be someone else) and on the certifications.

I will admit to feeling a tiny spark when I go back to my true love: Python. But I have no desire to do any type of Web development. Look at the source code for almost any HTML page and it is a mess!

 

[pjigar]

Look at the source code for almost any HTML page and it is a mess!

That's true everywhere in software as well hardware. The code is so inefficient that it makes me mad. But this is the reason we need ever more powerful and bigger SoCs.

PS: In college, I used to compete with friends as to who can write the smallest possible code to perform the task at hand. Good old days.

 

[CaptTom]

That's true everywhere in software as well hardware. The code is so inefficient that it makes me mad. But this is the reason we need ever more powerful and bigger SoCs.

PS: In college, I used to compete with friends as to who can write the smallest possible code to perform the task at hand. Good old days.

So true! At one time, Russians were considered the best coders because their hardware was so obsolete that they had to learn to code efficiently.

It used to irk me that developers always insisted on (and always got) the latest hardware. Then they'd develop things which could not run well on the crappy old systems the users had.

I always made it a point to keep an "average" workstation and monitor (just one!) so I could see how the users experienced things. Eventually I gave in and got a laptop, so technically I had two computers and two monitors at my desk.

Another trend I saw over the years was users tolerating slower and more cumbersome applications. Back in the mainframe days, with dumb terminals, user would time how long it took to refresh a screen. We'd get calls asking why something is now taking a few dozen milliseconds longer.

With PCs, I've noticed it's totally OK to make the user type, move the mouse, click, type some more, reach for the mouse again, click, drag, and otherwise make dozens of unnecessary movements just to do one simple thing. Then they'll sit patiently and wait for a spinning indicator.

What gets me the most is totally pointless things like presenting a dialog asking for user input, but not putting the cursor in the input field.

The web is a cesspool of horrible coding. Some developers know zero about how computers work. They just design their apps on some IDE where all they know how to do is drag and drop. If something doesn't work, they have no clue why, or how to fix it.

Wow. I guess I needed to let that out. Thanks. I feel better now.

 

[easysurfer]

About a year ago I got the itch to code and ended up spending about 2-3 weeks writing a program in JustBasic. Was both fun and also a realization that don't think I could code full-time like I used to. One thing I noticed is with older age, comes poorer eyesight and having to constantly change glasses or take off back and forth was something I never needed to do in the younger days of w*rk.

I still tinker like linux distro hopping or fixing up my laptop and every so often like to try out and test new computer programs. Plus, I'm "tech support" for some family and friends when they have computer questions. But that's about my tech extent.

 

[unclemick]

Watched Perseverance but but have no desire to revisit heat shields, dust covers, or even rockets for that matter.

At the Farm - Three sets of solar panels, three little 1-2kw wind mills, solar golf cart with lift kit and mud tires, Polaris EV with solar panel/Lithium batteries - hobby level nothing serious. Have 50 more solar panels to put up this spring.

Have some chestnut seedlings ala Mendel to cross breed in the future - try to grow West of the Mississippi.

Heh heh heh - Just an old ER putzer.

 

[RetiredAt55.5]

Look at the source code for almost any HTML page and it is a mess!

Partly that's the way it is because a lot of web pages are built now with javascript frameworks like Angular, where the framework automatically generates a lot of the javascript. The outputted javascript isn't meant to be "intelligible" if you try to view it directly.

Further, to speed download times (smaller web pages), some companies use software that compresses the size of the javascript and html, making it less intelligible. The added benefit is that it's also less intelligible to hackers.

The rollout of Angular javascript at my last job cured any desire to contemplate doing OMY. Just overly complicated and too many rules IMO.

 

[jollystomper]

PS: In college, I used to compete with friends as to who can write the smallest possible code to perform the task at hand. Good old days.

Back in the 70s, when I took programming classes in college, included in the grading criteria of many of the classes was lines of code and program memory usage. Even if your program worked you might get a C or D on the assignment if it did not make efficient use of storage and memory resources. Of course, that was at a time when memory and storage was limited and expensive.