Japan’s ’golden coder’ making games apps aged 82 [video]

I don't know if the video goes into this, but she also gave a talk at a TedX event some years ago, on digital stuff for seniors and making art in Excel.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUjXiYtOC7Y

Scarbutt• 9 years ago

nice coding setup ;)

Interesting how she seats, my legs would hurt.

Jach• 9 years ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seiza

spraak• 9 years ago

This is actually how I've been sitting for the past few months. I didn't recall it was a thing of Japanese culture, though, it just happened out of circumstance/need for me

yodsanklai• 9 years ago

Interesting indeed. We talk a lot alternatives to sitting, but I don't recall reading anything about this position. Maybe worth trying.

rangibaby• 9 years ago

My baby did it without being taught, so maybe it is a natural thing.

nihonde• 9 years ago

I'm painfully aware of my limit in sitting seiza from enduring formal events in Japan.

ksec• 9 years ago

I notice the mouse, I really hope Apple do acknowledge they make crappy mouse.

Another thing I am wondering, what makes a company not hiring programmer at old age when their brain are still functioning properly?

elldoubleyew• 9 years ago

With more age usually comes more experience, and with that higher wages. That's the canned answer.

But in this case I see your point. Many of these young CEOs just don't want older people in their offices. They have youth as part of "their culture". They also generally assume that older workers will be slower to adapt and less welcoming of a more volatile work environment; both frequent traits of many tech companies.

jansho• 9 years ago

It's a damn shame. "Slower to adapt" is a weak excuse, youth is definitely a large part of startup culture. But imagine all that wealth of experience and wisdom that you potentially miss!

tonyedgecombe2• 9 years ago

>With more age usually comes more experience, and with that higher wages.

I'm not sure that is true, if you can't get a job because you are old then your wage is zero.

Danieru• 9 years ago

In Japan the last company to have employed someone is on the hook for some retirement benefits. Thus one often sees hiring cut offs entering the fifties.

wyager• 9 years ago

Japanese hiring and benefits laws are extremely aggressive, which makes hiring someone of any age a very risky proposition. There was a good article posted here maybe a couple years back that had a great overview of the legal incentives leading to Japan's unfortunate soul-crushing sarariman system; I wish I could remember the title...

sergiotapia• 9 years ago

She's so inspiring! I wonder if actually programming regularly kept her sharp mentally.

zerr• 9 years ago

I wonder what happened to the generations of 70s/80s/90s arcade/NES/SNES/etc... game developers. Where are they now..

sdrothrock• 9 years ago

A surprising number of NES/SNES developers are still employed, if not at their original companies, at other game companies. I bet for every Shigeru Miyamoto you hear about, there are hundreds of other 50-something programmers who are still plugging away at games... and from what I hear, a lot of them have refused to adapt to modern languages/approaches/IDEs, which would explain why those particular people are not doing so well.

icebraining4• 9 years ago

a lot of them have refused to adapt to modern languages/approaches/IDEs, which would explain why those particular people are not doing so well.

Seems a bit shortsighted from the management's part. Retro and casual gaming is pretty hot right now, especially on mobile. I would license a good emulator, and then gather a good old-school team and let them make a few games their own way. Has anything like this been tried?

tonyedgecombe2• 9 years ago

>a lot of them have refused to adapt to modern languages/approaches/IDEs

There are plenty of young people like that too.

FraKtus• 9 years ago

My first job was to work on some Jamma game boards in the 90s... Thanks to that I did learn assembly and how to create fast animations on small platforms. I left the field after a few years and started a company in the Live Event industry, we are doing media server / VJing software. I am 54 now and while I run the company I still code 50% of my time. Some of my younger colleagues wish I used more C++ and less C :-)

OnlineCourage• 9 years ago

I know one...he's in his late 60's and he's an IEEE fellow.

teej• 9 years ago

I have a friend and former coworker who has been working in games since 1990. He is an incredible software engineer and I ended up learning a lot from him. He just recently got out of games and now works at Tesla.

Japan’s ’golden coder’ making games apps aged 82 [video]

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