Computer Careers Book
Saturday, October 07, 2006
Working after age 50
Here's a fascinating and well-researched article on how 50 something boomers can change careers:
working and changing careers after age 50
I admit, I'm disappointed that changing to a computer job was barely mentioned.
However, it does describe five fields that will really need senior talent in the years to come.
One of those is the government. In the government, age discrimination is officially prohibited. I have mentioned this in other places, but this is a good time to repeat it -- the government is a good place for anybody who wants to change to a computer career when they're over age 25.
Especially if you want to be a programmer. That career isn't mentioned in this article, but the government is certainly expanding its use of computer technology to cut down on costs and (believe it or not) paperwork.
Plus, every time Congress passes a new law, that means some program somewhere must be changed -- often a lot of them.
Therefore, I heartily encourage anybody to consider applying for a government computer job once you have your official credentials.
You must at least have the official educational background -- whether it's a computer science degree, MCSE or whatever. They don't want anybody of any age who doesn't at least have the basic job knowledge.
The good news is that although experience does count -- lack of experience will not get your application automatically thrown into the waste can, as is the case in many private companies.
So you should apply to as many government agencies as possible, because the needs of each will be different.
And no, you won't make the big money that is possible (though hardly guaranteed) by working in the private sector.
But changing to a computer career has never been a get rich quick or even slowly scheme. It's about acquiring skills to make a good living at something you love.
The latest article on my computer careers site is:
Asterisk for Not Yet Techies
Computer Careers
Computer Careers
lex update
This article updates the information at:
lex for Not Yet Techies
There is now an open source version of lex available from the GNU project and known as flex.
lex has been around for many years -- it predates C++, for example -- but is little used by many programmers, partly because it's associated with yacc.
It is something to keep in mind when you need a tool to perform pattern matching on text. lex can generate scanners, or programs which can pick out lexical patterns of words within a given text file.
lex
lex
