30 Years of Code Anniversary

In Stack Overflow Developer Survey, 2024 there was a question (I'm paraphrasing here):

As a part of your work, how many years have you coded professionally?
(NOT including education)

Today, this date, my answer is 30!
For this achievement, I'm awarding myself an AI-generated trophy.

This is an uncommon achievement. Looking at 2025 statistics of developer coding years (including education):

The draw to stop coding is strong.

First: This is hard and difficult work. Most people on this Earth can not do it. Even less can keep doing it.

Second: There are so many tasks near coding that don't actually involve writing nor reading code in product management, business analysis, design, QA, operations and support. It is so easy to sit next to a coder and tell them what to do.

Third: Getting promoted. It is very hard to resist new responsibilities with more pay without need to do much hands-on technical work. To most people it is. To me that's a no-brainer.

I keep resisting. I'm not promising another 30 years. I promise 10 good ones. 20 if I'm lucky.

PS.
Including education and hobbies before turning pro, the real number is over 40.