Ageism in IT? 861
Embedded Geek writes "It's hardly a new topic, but BBC is running a story about ageism hitting Gen-X, especially in IT. As a 34 year old coder, I was horrified to hear a quote from a *hiring manager*: 'In the IT sector (and coding in particular) younger minds generally work faster -- I would rather employ a keen teenager who code programs computers quickly than an older person.' It didn't help that the person is 32 years old. My kneejerk reaction, the same one anyone else over 30 would have, is that the guy is a buffoon (I'll withhold my preferred, spectacularly vulgar, term). The problem is that I do not believe his idiocy is unique - I have definitely felt the vibe when interviewing. It's frustrating, since Gen-X is finally shedding the media hyped 'slacker' stereotype only to run headlong into this garbage. Have any other Slashdot readers seen this? What is the youngest you can be before some PHB declares you fit for the scrap-heap? Other than stocking up on hair dye and botox, what steps can I take to prepare for the future? Share your war stories here." Ask Slashdot handled this topic over two years ago. Of course, this behavior could be explained away as economic concerns, as the decision to hire younger (and typically cheaper) employees can directly affect the bottom line. However, one has to wonder if the decision to go with less experienced programmers also affects software quality, in the long run. What are your thoughts on this subject?
Do younger minds absorb quicker? (Score:5, Interesting)
Sure, an older person can pick up the ability and wield a certain prowess and even artistry. But no one, to my knowledge, would argue the fact that a person who learns to play the piano in childhood has a certain "feel" for it that people who pick up this ability later in life can never attain. It's not that the older person can't play sonoriously with rhythm and emotion. But the younger player has a certain reach that will never be known to the older guy.
Andy Hertzfeld (of the original Macintosh development team) claimed that he used to be able to track and house far more complex contructs of thought, and more of them, in his mind when he was in his early 20's than he ever could at the time he was giving the interview (I would guess he was somewhere in his mid forties at that time). He called this ability "the gift of the young".
But in the book Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution [barnesandnoble.com] Steven Levy described how Ken Williams, the founder of Sierra Online [sierra.com] felt a missionary zeal in converting people to the belief that learning how to program a computer could change your life. Ken met Bob and Carolyn Box, who were an older married couple in their fifties. Bob was "...a former New Yorker, a former engineer, a former race car driver, a former jockey, and a former Guinness Book of WOrld Records champion in gold panning." When they both tried to get a job working for Sierra, Ken told them to "put up something on the screen using assembly language in thirty days". According to how the story is told, they both became very able assembly language programmers. Roberta Williams (Ken's wife) considered the Boxes "inspiring" and felt that learning how to program "rehabilitated their lives".
Of course that was a long time ago, and thus far I have spoken only of the abiltity to learn and to become an able programmer. To get slightly more "on topic"; as to whether there is job market opportunities for older folk, there is no reason an employer should discriminate on the basis of age, though I'm sure that many do. But as for the pure concept of programming I myself only picked up some ability in C++ (on my own, not through any school) when I turned 30 as I realized I was getting older and it was basically "now or never". I still enjoy learning as much as I can about it, and consider it a wonderful intellectual exercise, though I have no concrete plans of doing it for a living. I've already got a stable professional life and see it as a very enjoyable and rewarding hobby.
Defintely something to think about! (Score:2, Interesting)
Sorta, but not quite right. (Score:4, Interesting)
Younger people tend to pick up new skills quicker, and improvise without much effort, whereas older programmers may not learn new things very quickly, but will have more of a mastery of their respective language.
If I were a hiring manager, I would probably stick with experienced programmers if it were a mission-critical app, but someone younger if I were, say, trying to create a new game engine.
Age is a number (Score:5, Interesting)
I have no doubt that there are mentally vacuuous hiring individuals who think that younger is better however, and that is a problem. If I encountered that, I think I might send the CEO of the company a paper letter explaining what I heard at my interview, and why I wasn't going to work there.
at least... (Score:2, Interesting)
Younger minds are better (Score:0, Interesting)
Programmers are just pissed off by this because programming is a fairly new profession -- until recently, there haven't been very large numbers of older programmers around. In short: deal with it, people.
Age and Quality. (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course, it all depends... (Score:3, Interesting)
I think it is all relative, and in these times it could come down to the bottom line. Someone with 10 years experience is going to cost more than someone with 3. The risk may be worth it. We are just experiencing this now because over the last 10 years, there weren't too many "old" programmers out there, we were all relatively the same age. Now there is definitely an age gap.
Re:Do younger minds absorb quicker? (Score:5, Interesting)
I personally find the young people (especially the child prodigies who play) to be technically astonishing but dead in terms of the more esoteric parts of a performance. It takes a certain amount of life experience to know how to play with real feeling and maturity.
Being a programmer as well, I can state with absolute certainty that the same thing is true with programming. There is an artistry to programming that beginners lack. Heck, it took me 8 years to find it. And that artistry can allow you to write stabler, more efficient code.
Trying to explain... When one starts out on the piano, one sees individual black blobs on the page. Those blobs eventually start to form notes, and you learn the notes. Just as when you program, you learn the syntax of the language. And with a little trial and error, you can write a program that barely works, just as you can play music that sounds halfways decent.
But then the notes become chords - the chords become phrases, and the phrases become sections. And once you start to see the music in terms of phrases and sections, you need not worry about implementation details (what is this chord, how do I articulate that) and you are free to focus on the higher artistry of the music - what is this trying to get across, what do I want to invoke on the listener...
And once that happens, you have a self-consistent piece of art. Every piece relates to the other, in an unbroken fashion, throughout the piece - from the first note to the final chord. I don't care if it's 20 minutes long - you can still make that happen.
In terms of programming, this means that every module interacts well with all of the other modules, the code is clean and well-written, there are very few to no cases where errors are unhandled or a module will get unvalidated or unexpected input. The code is stable, and provably so.
Finding a pianist who can play the notes is cheap. Just as finding a programmer who can write code is cheap. They are a dime a dozen, and frankly, I'm not sure I would hire one. Finding a pianist who is a musician, or finding a coder who is an artist - that is a rare and precious find indeed.
Oh, and just so you know, I started playing when I was 16. By the time I was 17 I was a piano major in college and surpassing easily people who had been playing since early childhood.
--Russell
Re:Do younger minds absorb quicker? (Score:3, Interesting)
Experience + Passion (Score:2, Interesting)
Shortsighted Fallout (Score:3, Interesting)
A good analogy, IMO, would be just about any other "art." Do you want a first-year apprentice repairing your shoes? Sure, I guess, if speed is your goal. If you want it done right, you might want his boss with 20 years under his belt.
So why are they opting for the first-year apprentice? Well, who expects to be employed at a company ten or twenty years from now? Quality takes time to become obvious. Why should they shell out the extra money (time is money) for something that won't be obvious until after they've gone? They have a bottom line to meet and whether or not they're there in six months -- nevermind as many years -- is whether or not their numbers are lower than anyone elses. Investors are a fickle lot.
This trend is nothing more than the fallout of a society that no longer has it's citizens displaying one, two, maybe three companies on their resume. It is short-sightedness and I'm afraid there isn't anything you can really do about it.
In defense of tech ageism, sortof (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm a programmer. Or a software engineer. Whatever. (I prefer hacker, but not all potential employers will appreciate what I mean by it [catb.org].)
I understand one place where the ageism comes from.
The specific example cited above is just stupid, but there is a reasonable reason to prefer younger techies.
Remember Sturgen's Law [catb.org], 90% of everything crap. This includes techies. Sure, you may work at some company that only hires smart techies who care about their work. But many companies (especially larger companies) are stuck with what they can get. If you need 200 programmers to write insurance and banking application, chances are that many of them are going to suck. Some are actually bad. Some want to be good, but need time to get there. Some just don't care.
As a result, you take steps to make the most use of these crappy techies. This is part of the reason that some companies have overly complex planning, design, and revision systems. Sure, it prevents a truly skilled and inspired person from being really efficient, but they can help keep those people not so blessed on track and getting work down (however slowly). (By way of an example, a friend complained that he was on a project to do some file conversions. It would take him one or two weeks to whip it up in Perl and carefully test it. Instead there were two dozen people working on it for six months. A waste of skilled, dedicated manpower, but in the absence of someone my friend, probably the only way to get it done at all.)
Now, all that said, maybe the better solution is to fire all of the not-so-good techies and invest heavily in the skilled ones. After all, the skilled ones can often replace many less skilled ones. Ultimately this is a financial decision (which is the better payoff for investment), and I don't know the answer. Personally I would go with fewer and better techies, but I don't get to make that choice.
So, some companies, especially large ones, take steps that optimize for the non-so-good techies, even if those steps harm good ones.
Ageism is just such a case. The more general case is a refusal to hire someone who doesn't have either 5+ years of experience in the technology they'll be working with, or just graduated with education focusing on the technology. The reason, many of the not-so-good techies aren't too keen on learning new things. After all, many of them just want to do their job and coast on by. Even if trained they'll take a long, long time to get up to speed. However, if a not-so-good techie already has real experience or just graduated with that experience they start up time is (in theory) much lower. Ageism just takes the reasonable fact that many techies will not learn new tech and applies it in a very conservative way to hiring. Of course, this bones the good techies who learn quickly and like learning. It leads to silly cases where a company will spend a full year failing to hire someone with experience in FooTech instead of just hiring someone and allocating time for them to learn.
Of course, all of this is just one of the reasons for ageism. There are others. I just wanted to offer up an explaination of one on the possible reasons.
Another popular reason for ageism is that fresh college grads are used to working long hours and don't expect alot of money. In this economy they're even more desperate, I know several recent grads willing to take extremely low paid jobs to gain needed experience (Which working as a waiter or a receptionist doesn't give). Unfortunately this can lead to situations where people get burned out and knowledge leaves the industry. The lack of long term stability means fewer people are willing to enter the industry. Older employees expect to be treated like the professionals that they are, they want reasonable professional salaries and reasonable working hours (you can raise the hours, but the salary better match). I think it is often a reasonable investment, but companies are often only as smart as the dumbest link in their chain of command (thus, ageism might come from the top, or from a HR person).
Depends on the Individual (Score:5, Interesting)
But I love the looks I get from the middle age women as I walk out of the lesson room. Which is probably the root of the problem. Most middle age folks don't think someone their age *should* be learning new skills and definitely not having fun!
Re:Do younger minds absorb quicker? (Score:2, Interesting)
- Photograph
- Place of birth
- Age
- Nationality
- Marital status
So just be glad with the privacy you already have.
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
True costs (Score:3, Interesting)
Ask any experienced programmer where the biggest costs lies, and they'll tell you it's fixing (or worst, working around) the crap left from rushed or ill-informed decisions made earlier. This isn't just the cost of paying programmers to maintain the broken infrastructure, it's the lost opportunities as the people who know your code are prevented from working on new functionality, the delays in responding to changing demands, etc.
We all know that the marketplace often doesn't give us enough time to do things right... but a lot of mistakes can be avoided if you just have somebody on the team who has already done something similiar at an earlier job. Or arguably more importantly, somebody who has seen the same brilliant idea fail because the nasty problems don't appear until you're committed to this approach.
But I guess that's why we're told we have a "negative attitude." I've actually heard some people say that they'll never hire somebody who says something "can't be done." They make no distinction between professional knowledge (e.g., recognizing a problem as NP-complete with no known "good enough" approximations), professional experience (e.g., having worked at three other sites where the same approach was unsuccessfully attempted), or just a bad attitude.
The other cost that's often overlooked is that specialization is dangerous. You don't want to hire one person to fill a half-dozen separate positions, but having people on your staff who can cover others can be a godsend when your regular sysadmins are all away (e.g., one on vacation, the other home sick), or the DBA is on vacation, etc.
Re:Do younger minds absorb quicker? (Score:2, Interesting)
I know full well that most of you people wouldn't want a to see a "youngster" running around your office.
Age discrimination goes both ways. Everyone discriminates by age, even people here that are complaining about it. There really isn't any way to stop it, everyone just has to live with it. Yes, even you really old guys!!
What I find works the best is a good range of age and experience.
Some young guy might be able to code his ass off and finish something in one day. But you can bet no one else would want to have to read, heaven forbid maintain, that code!
I'm getting out of both ends. (Score:3, Interesting)
They want 8 years of experience doing this, and certifications to do that, and for you to be 20 years old and willing to work for minimum wage. And they think they can get it because we are all out there and hungry.
idiocy? (Score:3, Interesting)
Where did you get that idea from? It's not idiocy - it's a reality. I know that I won't be coding till I am in my 40s. Neither do I want to. I mean, it's true, people are different, and some people in their 40s are indistinguishable in many ways from people in their early 20s. But if you think about it, there are some abilities that are required that few 'older' people people possess. Among them
- If you are older, married and have a family you are less excited about staying till unholy hour of the morning finishing a project that has an imminent deadline tomorrow...
- If you are older, you are more set in your ways and would rather use the skills you already have rather than learn something totally new and off-the-wall. Yes, your skills may be very valuable, but you may lack the flexibility your employer is looking for. Let me re-phrase that. When faced with a new problem, I first try to see if I already know from prior experience how to solve it, and, if I do, use that experience, even though it may not be the most optimal solution. That's how we, human beings operate. That's why we have education, right? On the other hand, few areas change as quickly as software and your "solution based on experience", while still good, may not be the best one, and not the one your employer is looking for. In that sense, under some circumstances, your experience may be more of a drawback than a benefit.
- While some older people become wiser, and take criticism better, many others do become grumpy old men, and find it hard to be taught and criticised by the kids in their teens that apparently know some things better.
- When you get older you won't be willing to accept some of the jobs and tasks (especially the thankless ones like sysadmin) as readily as the younger people.
- Last, but not least (especially in today's pitiful economy), when you are younger, you will settle for less pay, more hours, and your insurance will be cheaper. Isn't that why a lot of developer jobs are moving to Russia, Romania, India, et.al.?
No idiocy - just face the reality! While discrimination based on age is illegal, it is true that you may not be able to perform certain tasks when you get older. Just like a 60-year old lady won't get a job at hooters, you won't be a coder in your 40s. So, start transitioning to a manager position in your 30s, while you still can - that's where you belong, and there is nothing wrong with that.
Re:Not absorption...less obstinance. (Score:2, Interesting)
That has nothing to do with age, and for you to make a statment as such, only groups you with them,
Rigidness in ones thought process is a personality trait, not one based on age. I'm close to forty, been doing "IT" for close to 20 years. Yet, I am constantly changing the tools which I use and the manner in which I do it to adjust and be "modern". I've "used" just about ever OS and system most people can imagine, and do so based on the requirements, not my personal preferences. Of course, that may explain why I'm not one of the unlucky few to be unemployed in this economy.
in the infamous words of Denis Miller, "Of course that's just my opinion, I could be wrong"
Most programming is pure grunt work (Score:3, Interesting)
This isn't an insult to people over thirty. I am over thirty. It's more that most programming is pretty simple, and therefore it makes sense to have it done by cheap, almost slave labor.
As programmer becomes a true master, which is something that takes a decade or more and a wide variety of professional experience, that person will be much less inclined to just write brute force solutions in Visual Basic. He'll start to think more, wonder why we're wasting our time using garbage like C++ or why most Visual Basic programs end up being the same and therefore should be replaced by something more succinct and automated. But that kind of thinking doesn't do much good. It takes more time to think about such things than to just write the damn code for the ugly way.
Younger folks work faster? Hell no (Score:4, Interesting)
"In the IT sector (and coding in particular) younger minds generally work faster."
This is utter bullcrap.
I'm in my early 30s and been doing tech lead (lead teams of 5 - 20 people) for about 2 years now. I've worked with a lot of programmers, young and old. I've supervised, peered and worked under older programmers.
In my experience working faster has nothing whatsoever to do with age. It's everything to do with ability and experience though.
My experience tells me that even if a (really) young person was seemingly working faster, they really aren't, because their lack of experience generally makes them work on the wrong things. They do double the work, work on the wrong things and make more mistakes. That certainly applied to me when I was younger.
This is happening all over the place on the current team I'm managing. The youngest (most inexperienced) people are constantly the people I'm spending most of my time with. The older folks, not only know when to ask for help, but also produce less defects, so their work is much more efficient. They probably type slower though, if that's what "working faster" means...
Sometimes, very rarely though, a youngster can overcome his lack of experience by being truly brilliantly talented. I've had the pleasure of working with a handful of such people. The results these sort of people produce, are nothing short of amazing. Gotta give credit where credit is due. The next time you usually see these people is when they get that corner office with outside view
Proletariat of the world, unite to kill ignorance
Re:Not absorption...less obstinance. (Score:3, Interesting)
When I worked doing phone tech support, I always hated these calls (almost as much as the people who are physically incapable of single-clicking) because they are some of the most stubborn people I've ever had to talk to. It didn't matter that I knew the answer that they were looking for. The simple fact that they couldn't find the answer with their own reasoning was enough for them to not accept any answer I was about to give them.
Now, when I need to make a call in to a tech support hotline, I never make the statement "I've been a network engineer for the last 5 years" but rather "I seem to be having this problem, I've checked this, this, and this, and I still can't find the solution..."
There is something to be said for people who get so set in their ways that they refuse to learn new things, but I don't think that age is a sole component of this mentality. Its generally true that younger people are more succeptable to picking-up a new or different way of thinking, but (as in just about everything else that involves people) it really does depend on the individual.
Re:Not absorption...less obstinance. (Score:3, Interesting)
There is a large segment who are, though. When younger people are obstinate, you can generally smack them out of it because you'll have more experience, and they'll come around...that option doesn't generally exist for someone who's been around for 20 years.
The way you describe yourself is the way things should be. The ideal way to keep yourself employed is to keep adapting...it just happens that most people like working themsevles into a groove as time progresses.
Re:Yuck (Score:1, Interesting)
But the fact is that programmers are hired in teams of heterogenous age. Where I work, we take 3 or 4 25 yr olds and and match them up with a 40 yr old lead, and there you go: a low-cost and successful team, young minds destined to learn, and wisdom to keep them from wandering astray. Tasks prepended with design docs and followed by code reviews help to ensure that what mistakes are made by youth are only made once.
It's what we do where I work, and it works very well. And it's an age ratio decidedly skewed against thirty-somethings.
Re:Do younger minds absorb quicker? (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, they have. If you want a job creating, say, music for TV commercials, movies, or games, or even be in a band that's going anywhere, you need to be able to run a synthesizer and be able to do most of the jobs of a symphony orchestra. You're probably working at a computer most of the time, and doing the jobs that used to require a composer, a pianist, an arranger, a conductor, and a music copyist.
Procedural Vs. OO an age thing? (Score:2, Interesting)
Regardless of which side you take on this issue, it makes for an interesting fight. At best, I think OO is a personal choice. It may fit some people's minds better, but is not objectively superior for all domains and usages.
Re:Do younger minds absorb quicker? (Score:2, Interesting)
In any case, I'm 19 now, with some grey hair, and I'm already having trouble in job interviews. I do co-op through my university, and although I've never been asked explicitly about it, I do get "vibes" from interviewers, sorta wondering why such an "old" guy is still in school. I think they sorta get to wondering why I only graduated high school 2 years ago if I'm as old as I must be.. sigh.
The 2 companies I've worked for so far, I've been the youngest person there, but nobody would believe it until I pulled out the ID. I can't imagine the trouble I'll have 5 to 10 years down the road when I look nearly 40.. urgh. So yeah, ageism in IT definitely worries me. I don't think I'll be able to work after 30, so I'll probably have to go back to school and become a prof or something - the one profession where you're allowed to be nice and ripe =)
On the plus side, I was able to buy beer and get into bars when I was 16 (had grey hair back then too, and for us Canucks, the drinking age is 18 or 19 depending on region).
Other Facts weigh in (Score:1, Interesting)
Stop talking about "ageism"; do something about it (Score:5, Interesting)
First, younger programmers have less experience in life. Lacking the well-earned caution of older professionals, they tend to be enthusiastic about their work, which they meet with alacrity. Managers often interpret this enthusiasm as "energy," "speed," and "higher productivity" -- all valuable traits worth seeking an an employee. Even though I know of no measurements or studies to support this interpretation, the perception is widespread, and it's not unreasonable for HR folks to act upon it.
Second, as others have pointed out, younger programmers usually have fewer extracurricular responsibilities to compete with work. Managers see this as increased devotion to the company and the opportunity to get more work for the same money. Again, it's not unreasonable to give preference to people with fewer extracurricular distractions.
Third, in the software industry, experience is rapidly devalued because the valuable mainstream technologies often make one another obsolete. (This is in contrast to, say, the legal profession, where decades-old experience is readily applicable.) While this fact doesn't directly benefit younger programmers, it does put more-experienced (and hence older) programmers at a disadvantage because they are perceived as wanting compensation for their vast, often irrelevant experience. In other words, managers often feel that more-experienced programmers want more pay than they are truly worth.
All of these reasons give managers and HR folks good reason to hire programmers who just happen to be young.
But, there's more to the story
That said, I have been coding for about twenty years. There is no doubt in my mind that the me of today can write much better software than the me of ten years ago, and I can do it in less time. Likewise, when I consider all of the young, hotshot coders who I used to work with when I was a young, hotshot coder, I would rather hire them as they are today than as they were back then. Simply put, they are better coders today.
Back then, we cranked out the code, and our employers loved us. But, being honest, much of that code was crap, and much of our "productivity" was wasted on false starts, gold plating, blind hackery, and all-night debugging sessions that could have been avoided by a more disciplined approach to creating software. The thing is, our managers couldn't tell the difference between fast, furious activity and true productivity. And neither could we.
And that's the most dangerous threat to older, more-experienced software professionals: Lack of measurement. I'm convinced that experienced professionals who have invested in their abilities, made consistent effort to learn from their mistakes, and know how to communicate effectively are worth their weight in gold. In the long haul, they will outpace inexperienced hotshots almost every time.
But without measuring actual performance, you'll never notice. You'll mistake long hours for productivity. You'll mistake unnecessary all-nighters for dedication. And you'll mistake older programmers for expensive versions of their younger counterparts.
So, if you are an older, experienced software professional, stop talking about "ageism". It's a lost cause. Start talking about realisitc productivity measurements. If you want to be perceived as more valuable, you'll have to do it the hard way: You'll have to prove it.
Re:consulting (Score:2, Interesting)
When I informally polled my peers, there was an eery positive correlation between large monthly dry cleaning bills and career progression after the bust.
YMMV but mine's been excellent after making the change.
I experienced the opposite (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:How to stay employed (Score:2, Interesting)
For design/architecture of large programs or databases, and for getting specifications together, I'll always go for someone with experience.
For hammering out the 200,000 lines of code that will flesh out that design, cheap and fast is the way to go.
You can always test the code to make sure it fits the specs. You can't test the specs to make sure the system will still work 5 years from now. I see it as pretty similar to the construction industry. You may have a crew of 20 year olds to put up the building, but you'll want some 40 year old engineers who have done this 10 times before to design one that won't fall down.
So, if you want to stay employed (and employable), you need to change the character of your work as you mature. Do the things that only experienced people can do, and you're set.
Re:Do younger minds absorb quicker? (Score:4, Interesting)
And as far as "real world happenings", I'm not sure what you mean by that, but I'm pretty comfortable in my understanding of what goes on in the real world.
As far as where I will work, generally I was referring to situations in which there is a choice, which thankfully in IT has, even in this economy, been pretty much true.
And the same to you, by the way.
I think.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Being self employed, I've noticed (now age 30) that I am respected more by clients who see me as someone who has been in the business longer... Perhaps they want to *HIRE* young, but they want to contract with a company that has more experience, maybe with some of those younger coders under the wing of the lead...
Someone to focus all the raw energy.
Isn't there a Japanese business archetype of the older man that guides and tempers the younger man, you need to position yourself as the lead/guiding role
Re:Do younger minds absorb quicker? (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Do younger minds absorb quicker? (Score:5, Interesting)
My coding skills are _vastly_ superior to what they were 10 years ago. Sure, 10 years ago, I could write 1000 lines of code in a week without working up a sweat, and now I write [0] just a fraction of that in a week. But the difference is that fraction of LOC does just as much, and it actually _works_
[0] Actually, I'm in a BOFH/co-ordinator job rather than a coding job. I needed a break from programming for a living. Besides those jobs are being shipped abroad, so I've moved into work which requires physical on-site presence and so can't be moved to India.
Younger minds... (Score:4, Interesting)
Young minds faster? Maybe, but also often wrong. (Score:1, Interesting)
30 year olds (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Do younger minds absorb quicker? (Score:3, Interesting)
The difference is that the "youngsters" rigid thinking involves current technology, while the rigidity of the "older folks" involves technology that has been around a while, and when not actually waning, is typed as "old stuff".
Being rigid about The Latest Thing won't make you look like a ridiculous reactionary right away, in fact if it is truly The Latest Thing it may fool folks into thinking you are an innovator. Eventually, your favorite technology will become old, and you will be old with it.
Sort of like old guys who still have their hair done up in the same style that was fashionable when they were 16.
Paraphrasing Karl Marx, "innovation the first time looks chic and fashionable, the second time it looks ridiculous and dated"
Non-programming jobs? (Score:2, Interesting)
I started out as a lowly Technical Writer and 3 years later I'm a regional quality manager. I have staff who are older and younger than me.
There are many other roles where experience definitely actually adds value - Project Management, Service Delivery Management, Sales, etc...
I hired a Service Delivery executive in his forties who did Data Center management for 15 years, then left to a variety of jobs before getting stuck in the unemployment trap. I asked the potentially biased question of how would he take to working in an environment of 20-30 somethings and a boss nearly half his age. I was so impressed with his humble and honest answers (and of course his wealth of experience), I hired him on the spot. It was also smart of him to ask for a salary range comparable to the 20-30 somethings, which meant I could stay in budget and get much more value in terms of experience.
Older programmers just need to stay abreast of the trends and see where the "older" jobs are. If programming is going in favor of younger staff, ageism prevailing, rightfully or wrongfully, it's time to explore other alternatives.
Re:Do younger minds absorb quicker? (Score:2, Interesting)
Unfortunate sign of the times... (Score:3, Interesting)
Then M$ came along in 1995 and released a huge pile of crap masquerading as an OS called Windows95. I feel justified calling it this because I was one of the outside beta testers and got see personally what it was worth. The structure was there (barely). Commented? HA. And as for the 3rd criteria, well, for you younger folks, computers aren't supposed to crash & lockup when you happen to sneeze near them!
This is just an opinion but since M$ seems to be doing so well producing error-riddled software, a lot of other companies are doing the same thing. It's almost like this is becoming the norm. This might explain why experienced coders are being let go.
I use myself as an example. I was in charge of Beta testing. I was fired because I refused to sign my name to a document stating that a particular piece software was as error-free as possible. I knew it wasn't because the errors that I had found and submitted were never fixed. Why? Because the owners of the company wanted to programmers to work on the new changes they had proposed. There were new changes every 2-3 days so no wonder errors weren't being fixed. The final reason I was given was that my vision of the company wasn't the same as managements.
I guess this was, in essence, true because setting me up to take the fall for crappy software when the customers started screaming certainly wasn't my view!
Age is thought of as a liability (Score:2, Interesting)
A coder that's 30 might have picked up some knowledge about complex systems design that some 20 year old has yet to learn through experience. And it could be the other way around. Perhaps the 30 year old has only been coding for a couple of years. Or a 40 year old, or 50 or whatever.
My only advice is if you are applying for a job where you think age may be a significant determining factor in whether you are hired or not, try and turn it into an asset, not a liability. Talk up your skills and experience, and how you can save your employer time and money because you can avoid common mistakes and use the things you've learned to make better systems, save time and be more productive.
I hope to run my own software related company someday, and hope I still I have the good notion to look at the whole picture when hiring people.
My
Re:Do younger minds absorb quicker? (Score:3, Interesting)
He claims that a coworker has implemented an entire real-world system for a client that actually had zero if() statements in the code. He did say that the guy had to put in some small extra effort in a few spots to get rid of some if()s, but overall polymorphism has replaced decision making in their code.
It was the first class I've taken from Valtech. I found it to be very useful. Our instructor certainly knew his stuff.
Re:Piano analogy (Score:2, Interesting)
Any task or skill takes continued practice to maintain any level of proficiency. Exposure to new versions and variants keeps the skills fresh.
I think older coders (at least if they have anything at all going for them) have knowledge about human interactions and business processes that younger coders just haven't been exposed to. While writing code is a technical exercise, really understanding WHY you need to develop an app is more closely associated with gained knowledge.
Does this mean that older programmers have an advantage in the real world? Probably not. Old = more experience = more pay. In a world where even Indian programmers are being outsourced to the newest low cost provider, us old f***s don't stand much chance...
Dogu