Coding at 50: A Programmer's Midlife Crisis?

A seasoned programmer reflects on his career, finding large-scale, high-pressure coding frustrating: poorly understood domains, vast APIs, cryptic documentation, ever-changing tech stacks, and unpredictable bugs. He realizes this intensity isn't sustainable, especially at 50. He prefers building small, reliable tools—like a sub-28KB C and Erlang image compositor—over large projects. This raises questions about programmer career paths and sustainability: is high-pressure coding a young man's game?