Ask Slashdot: Becoming a Programmer At 40?

New submitter fjsalcedo writes "I've read many times, here at Slashdot and elsewhere, that programming, especially learning how to program professionally, is a matter for young people. That programmers after 35 or so begin to decline and even lose their jobs, or at least part of their wages. Well, my story is quite the contrary. I've never made it after undergraduate level in Computer Science because I had to begin working. I've always worked 24x4 in IT environments, but all that stopped abruptly one and a half years ago when I was diagnosed with a form of epilepsy and my neurologist forbade me from working shifts and, above all, nights. Fortunately enough, my company didn't fire me; instead they gave me the opportunity to learn and work as a web programmer. Since then, in less than a year, I've had to learn Java, JavaScript, JSTL, EL, JSP, regular expressions, Spring, Hibernate, SQL, etc. And, you know what? I did. I'm not an expert, of course, but I'm really interested in continuing to learn. Is my new-born career a dead end, or do I have a chance of becoming good at programming?"

Slashdot should be renamed

[Anonymous Coward]

to ageism.stackoverflow.com.

Re:it's at a dead end

[Anonymous Coward]

With the worst first comment ever.

Re:it's at a dead end

[empties]

The legit question is: will I be able to continue to learn faster than a programming robot will advance and eventually replace me? The truth is that the programming robot will learn at an exponential rate, so there will likely be little difference between having 2 years of experience or 20 by the time the robot surpasses your ability. Perhaps the 20-year-programmer will have an extra day or two to try and hack into the robot, and likely that extra experience will help with that goal. But all programmers will eventually be replaced by the robot. Then, at long last, the hardware engineers can again gloat.

Re:You answered your own question

[alexo]

Go forth and prosper.

I'm not an expert, but shouldn't it be
Forth go prosper and .

Re:To both question: Yes.

[Anonymous Coward]

Good for you. Your organs* will live on in future rich people.

* Brain not included.

Re:Good for you!

[Anonymous Coward]

Age-related cognitive decline is a reality.

So it's true that teenagers really do know everything?

Re:it's at a dead end

[Sponge Bath]

I expect to be replaced by a robot sometime around 2030.

10:30PM tonight: [knock knock] Are you Sarah Conner?

Re:Good for you!

[mcmonkey]

One of the best programmers I've ever worked with started as an accountant and became a programmer in his 40s first with ASP and then with PHP. What he lacked in advanced knowledge he made in spades up by being careful and methodical. He never tried to show off and when he designed something it was generally right the first time and out of the 20 programmers in our office he had by far the lowest bug count.

Yeah, but who was counting the bugs? Thats right, the accountant!