[petermurrayrust]

I have always looked ahead - used to read a lot of near-future sci-fi - Arthur Clarke, Asimov, Gibson, Stephenson, Bradbury. Much of what they envisaged is reality - earphones, networks, knowledge-based AI.

It use to be hard to do computing - you had to understand compilers and assembler and you were often on your own. Now I'd say that anyone who can do Sudoku can understand many common algorithms. Here's a simple example (https://blogs.ch.cam.ac.uk/pmr/2014/03/15/segmentation-of-im... Ramer-Douglas-Peucker segmentation of contours). I've illustrated it with kangaroos - but I think children of (I guess) six years old could easily manage it. And so could a 75-year old.

The thing that's different is the frameworks. 10 years ago you'd have to build this from the bottom up. Things like reading images (Java.IOImage is not cuddly). But now we have boofcv.org and Apache (and similar in Python).

Learn to use libraries and you can be an effective programmer. The skill is finding out what's out there. And here the social skills are important. Go to hack days - we had a wonderful NHS hack day in Cambridge. Find your makerspaces. Contact Mozilla, Wikipedia or OKFN. They'll all love to hear from you.

Do you like crosswords? You've got half the skills required for natural Language Programming already. And remember there are people to help you. I will.

And thats' a great idea - an over-70s hack day. If you are interested, tweet me @petermurrayrust Not on twitter? That's the first thing you should think about!

[lifeisstillgood]

This thread is marvellous - inspiring for those of is heading through middle age and those of any age wondering should we compromise quality yet again.

Thank you - and good luck.

PS was the NHS hack day an OPen Knowledge thing - I hear they are kicking off a NHS England wide data project?

[petermurrayrust]

From nhshackday.com:

Geeks who love the NHS

NHS Hack Days are weekend events that brings together doctors, nurses, developers, designers, and other "geeks who love the NHS" to create disruptive solutions to problems in the health space. NHS Hack Days are ongoing and enjoy the support of prominent international health care and technology leaders.

The next NHS Hack Day will be at St.George's Students' Union, 2nd Floor Hunter Wing St George's, University of London, Cranmer Terrace, Tooting SW17 0RE London on the 24th-25th of May

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IIRC there is no charge but there may well be limited. You don't have to be a developer. Could be useful if you know how to find (public) NHS data.

[X4]

😢 That's awesome and encouraging ! Thanks for the thoroughly written response and the great tips!