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Ask HN: Is programming a “young person's game”?
11–20 of 151 posts
Re: Ask HN: Is programming a “young person's game”?
#12You're conflating three things: when most people start programming, how long they stay productive, and whether it's possible to pick it up later in life.
When most people start programming: most people discover what they're passionate about early in life. That of course gives them a huge bonus, because they usually can spend a lot more free time and are nimble learners at that age. However, learning a skill early can also have draw backs, such as being set in your ways because you were in a "know it all" phase at the time, or learning to do things based on instinct rather than reflection.
How long they stay productive: that probably varies a lot, but I don't think I was as productive in my twenties as I'm now in my fourties. I suspect that people who drop out of programming lose passion for it or discover more important things, rather than lose the knack for it.
Whether it's possible to pick it up later in life: there is such a thing as innate suitability. If you're having a hard time, that could be a factor. Or maybe something just hasn't clicked yet. More likely, it's just not for you. All of these considerations don't matter if you're doing it just for fun, mind you. That being said, unless you really forgot how to learn new stuff, it's totally possible and pick up skills later in life and then excel at them (bodily restrictions may apply).
I would say programming as a skill is mostly driven by a constant dissatisfaction and need for improvement, not necessarily by the age of the programmer.
Re: Ask HN: Is programming a “young person's game”?
#13> What do they do after that?
They get a life. You know, a partner, a different hobby from programming, some kids.
Imagine you are 35, have kids (and care to spend time with them) and you have to train your body or it will break down so you must go to gym even if you don't like it. You have to sleep good or you'll crash.
Compare that when you're 22, no kids, no need to exercise, young energy, can sleep bad, you want to change the world(overworking), programming is also your hobby, etc.
> I'm 30 and missed my chance to be a kid prodigy in programming or math and clearly not happening now.
To be good at math olympiad you have to train for it (a math olympiad professor told me). You can't just be "smart". It's like HackerRank, you just have to study HackerRank to pass HackerRank.
> Is there an area where you can be good at as you get older and what is the old man's game options as a programmer?
You can be good at specializing (example I like backend, dbs/search-engine, performance) or managing.
Re: Ask HN: Is programming a “young person's game”?
#1499% of the tech wizardry stuff is irrelevant to most entrepreneurial opportunities. You don't need the latest stack. You don't need to be an algo expert. You don't need to flex to get the job done.
You can still be clever in the business sense with something simple like CRUD SAAS. Apply your unique insights and life experiences to identify the problems you wish to solve. Finding the right opportunities is more important than solving them with high-falutin solutions.
A simple and elegant solution which serves customer's needs will always have an appeal. Using technical expertise to get that solution in front of the customer's eyes is even more important.
Code is only a tool, a vehicle to take you towards your destination. As programmers we sometimes telescope in on our love of technology. Take a step back and look at the larger picture.
Re: Ask HN: Is programming a “young person's game”?
#15Programming is diverse, so let me explain from my narrow perspective.
I am a JavaScript developer. I am much older than you. It is very much a young persons game, but let me qualify this.
Most people actively programming JavaScript for employment cannot program, at least not to the level considered minimally employable in many lesser popular programming fields. Hiring is structured around this, so much so that employers much make a specific dedicated choice between a risk adverse tool user versus an innovative problem solver focused on product superiority. They will almost certainly choose the former because it’s a safer option. Employers willing to take a risk on developers interested in doing original higher quality work tend to be those that work harder to retain their developers.
So there’s that.
On the other hand I didn’t start programming until I was 28. It didn’t take long to become better than average. Now, a bazillion years later, I can do things now that are vastly superior to what the big companies are putting out. It’s not because I am talented or a child prodigy. It’s because I measure things and make original decisions not based on popularity or some community consensus bullshit.
Re: Ask HN: Is programming a “young person's game”?
#16If you want to do anything competitively it's a young people's, and arguably very often a young men's (for reasons that are not fully understood yet), game.
I think that competitive spirit, or arrogance, depending on how old you are, lessens with age. Also, the older you get, the less time you can spend with any competition (try to play some MMOs against teenagers in your thirties). Finally, your body is peaking around 20. You can of course fight that and many top-level athletes compete at a very high level in their forties (think Fernando Alonso), but even these outliers are arguably less capable than ten years ago and have literally decades of experience.
Fortunately, programming as a profession is not a competition.
Re: Ask HN: Is programming a “young person's game”?
#17The age thing is more about our business culture than our tech culture. There is lots of room for older programmers if they can be buffered from short term goals and the switching of those goals every few weeks. In addition those older programmers need more comfort that they won't have the sword of Damocles hanging over their body as their job is constantly threatened (as well as the jobs of their coworkers).
If businesses can settle into a cadence with high psychological safety and multi-year runways, older programmers can do tremendous things for the business (or government/organization) and deliver high quality software and at the same time train up junior engineers.
Re: Ask HN: Is programming a “young person's game”?
#18This whole notion that programming / software engineering is for "youngsters" is utter bs, and comes from the past where computers were seen as toys // people didn't understand them.
Re: Ask HN: Is programming a “young person's game”?
#19I'm currently mentoring two people who started programming as a hobby after 30 and it's going really well.
Programming is about two things: dexterity with tools (editors, operating system, log analysers, code versioning etc) and conceptual thinking (abstraction, planning, problem framing, problem solving). If you are interested in starting with programming, I suggest you pick a topic you care about as a hobby and progressively become more serious about it:
- do you like web design? start a simple home page for a project
- do you like DIY electronics? start with embedded programming
- do you like gaming? start with one of the gaming engines
- do you like phone/tablet apps? start with a low-code platform
Also find someone to mentor you, ideally someone you can talk to in person or over a video chat.
Re: Ask HN: Is programming a “young person's game”?
#20Programming is nothing like Math. And programming competitions are nothing like every day programming.
I think you'll find most programmers become better over time well into their 40s, as making the right architectural/structural decisions easily trumps any minor loss you may experience in "fast thinking".