The premise is wrong here. Maths is not a guilded hobby for the young, nor is programming.
Don't get hung up on people saying you can't do it because it didn't work for them.
Ask HN: Is programming a “young person's game”?
111–120 of 151 posts
Re: Ask HN: Is programming a “young person's game”?
#112Programming can be thought as a medium similar to paper+pen or video, but it's interactive. Ask yourself then: "Is writing a 'young man's game'?". Of course not. Then the question should be reframed to "what kind of programming is young man's game?". Find appropriate answers. Then think what kind of software cannot be written or even thought by a young man.
Escape the bubble you're currently in and start thinking in a broader way.
Re: Ask HN: Is programming a “young person's game”?
#113I used to absolutely love programming when I was a kid, but got completely bored of it after my first year on the job.
I switched to being a sysadmin, but got bored of that after a couple of years too.
I know other people who've been able to keep their passion alive for decades. It depends on your personality.
My interests change too much for that, and doing something day after day after day for months or years on end just kills my interest in doing that thing.
Re: Ask HN: Is programming a “young person's game”?
#114[deleted]
Re: Ask HN: Is programming a “young person's game”?
#115I created intercooler.js when I was 32. I created htmx (intercooler 2) when I was 40 and it has been far more successful. I also created hyperscript when I was 40. I'm working on new stuff as we speak. I could have made a lot more money by moving over to tech management at around age 30, which is what I think sucks a lot of programmers out of the game, but I like writing code. I do have memory issues compared with wh…
I am now reading The Grug Brained Developer for the first time, and thoroughly enjoying every minute of my time. Thank you for writing this!
Re: Ask HN: Is programming a “young person's game”?
#116Programming isn't young mans game but a career doing programming is young man's game. It is a young man's game in the sense that your priorities in life change. Just lose your motivation to * learn the next hottest framework on the weekends, * doing leetcode puzzles to change jobs * 25 yr old nitpicking your PR that you didn't organize your imports in alphabetical order. * plateauing at L6 level while your peers beco…
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Re: Ask HN: Is programming a “young person's game”?
#117Programming isn't young mans game but a career doing programming is young man's game. It is a young man's game in the sense that your priorities in life change. Just lose your motivation to * learn the next hottest framework on the weekends, * doing leetcode puzzles to change jobs * 25 yr old nitpicking your PR that you didn't organize your imports in alphabetical order. * plateauing at L6 level while your peers beco…
>plateauing at L6 level while your peers become directors. Why would you want to make 250k while your friends make 450k. I'm always surprised how often this comes up. The salaries in our industry are so absurd that I find it hard to believe that this, at the margin, is supposed to be so relevant. Same with the comparisons to your peers. What our peers do and where they stand on some invented hierarchy sounds like str…
I think it's more about not being recognized for the amount of work that one puts, not necessarily the absolute (or relative) pay.
How many times I've worked all-nighters to build core parts of a system, only to see the guy who talks the loudest in meetings get promoted.
Re: Ask HN: Is programming a “young person's game”?
#118I started learning to code at 29 (I'm 37 now). I just went to codecademy and didn't stop. It seemed too good to be true but it works. I've been working as a software dev since 2018, currently work at an AI startup.
The core brains here are a few machine learning scientists who are more of the prodigy type, very very smart, and 10 years younger than me. But you don't need to be a prodigy to be useful. They also need people to figure out what the client wants, take messy data and clean it, make a front end UI that doesn't suck.
Re: Ask HN: Is programming a “young person's game”?
#119I started University at 24. Couldn't program, was quite bad at math. Learned logic the hard way, by grinding it. I'm 30 now, I'm very good at both math and programming, even published a paper. But I didn't do a PhD, turns out that I don't like academia. I have 500 medium and hard leetcodes solved in the last year. Before I started grinding leetcode, I was terrible at leetcode (who would've thought). Same for Systems…
This is all true but note you've still started grinding in your 20s. I'm thinking more like if you take a teen or early 20s and they grind 10k hours on leetcode and you take a 30s or older and they put 10k hours too who would come ahead? My bet would be on the young ones.
Re: Ask HN: Is programming a “young person's game”?
#120I'm 35, and i've done A LOT of tech hiring. I've witnessed first-hand other managers making comments about "older" coders such as "well, do we think they're going to be adapable?" or "Is it a good culture fit?" These questions are always thinly veiled ageism. Regardless of age, some people become set in their ways. With age, this becomes more apparent and noticeable because people are looking for it. Sometimes being…
It shows a lack of respect to call someone set in their ways, because no rational person wants to abandon their advantage to follow the vogue trends of the younger generation. It's basically like resetting your experience points back to zero. If you can't use someone for the coding craft they actually have, then you're leaving them with just soft skills and computer science judgement, in which case they'd be better served doing management.