HACKER Q&A
📣 smackeyacky

Would you take a job programming VMS?


I’m an older programmer but I spent my career staying up to date. I’ve managed that for 36 years give or take. Now with AI doing a lot of my current job I can see that there’s a definite end point where the combo of competing with younger programmers for a shrinking pool of work is going to get tough.

However there seem to be a few niches where I could be productive until I’m ready to retire and there might be an opportunity to join a team working on a system they’re trying to get off of. My quick evaluation is that there’s 3 or 4 solid years doing that in a backwater where AI is going to struggle.

In this situation would you do it? I frankly don’t care about being on top of tech any more but I’m keen to use my years of experience being productive.

  👤 mikewarot Accepted Answer ✓
The nice thing about the DEC VAX/VMS system is that there is good help online, and enough good documentation to fill a library.

I run an 11/780 emulated system on my phone on days I feel nostalgic.

👤 sgbeal
> I frankly don’t care about being on top of tech any more but I’m keen to use my years of experience being productive.

Preach it, brother! :-D

> In this situation would you do it?

FWIW, if it would keep me productive and keep a roof over my head, i'd not at all be averse to working on VMS or a similarly obscure system, provided they didn't require me to know anything about it going in (which would rule me out).

At some point in our lives we have to accept practicality over bling. Let the young'uns fight out the LLM Wars, then walk in (if necessary) once that dust has settled.