Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Is programming a “young person's game”?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 151 posts

Re: Ask HN: Is programming a “young person's game”?

#51

Post by adenozine »

Unpopular opinion: I think greenfield development is a young man’s game, but there’s plenty of maintenance and carryover work for those in the older brackets. The big 60 is sneaking up on me and I’ve spent probably 80% of my working hours the past couple years looking after codebases that already existed. I sometimes lead teams on new projects, though they’re analytical in nature and I only need worry about correctness and basic lints for style and smell.

If you’re worrying about being a “top programmer” then perhaps there’s something else that’s really on your mind.

I’ve met some people who bill for a days work what I bill for a week, and they didn’t write code very much differently than I do. Those prodigies are naturally gifted with strong systemic thinking and design and are mathematically bent.

Work on your people skills, build a team that is motivated and wants to charge forward with you, and then with their help you will obliterate the obstacles in your path.

Re: Ask HN: Is programming a “young person's game”?

#52

Post by shubhamjain »

> I'm 30 and missed my chance to be a kid prodigy in programming or math and clearly not happening now.

This is exactly how I felt in my early 20s. As young as I was, I still felt I had fallen behind the curve. There were programmers far younger than me contributing to major OS projects, hacking their own operating systems, and creating video games.

I think already has said how it's never too late, but I want to say something different that I wish I should've known. Programming is one of those fields where you can grow in unimaginable amount of ways. You can be a competitive programmer, if you can think fast in a high-pressure environment. Like making apps and products? You can become a full-stack engineer and join an early startup. Have a fun artsy side? You can be a game developer. Like detective work and combining multiple hints together? Maybe security engineering is for you.

The fact is that you can play on any of your strengths and become something unique. You'll stop comparing yourself, because you'd realize you're bringing something better to the table than the prodigies. The competitive programmers might be great at thinking in terms of algorithms, but they absolutely suck (from what I have seen) at startups where you need quick hacky skills to combine things together.

My advice is to ignore the noise. Let your interests drive you, and you'll become eventually stop thinking about the how famous programmers are better than you.

Re: Ask HN: Is programming a “young person's game”?

#53

Post by mdemare »

I think there are four different issues here.

1) To what extent does starting programming at a young age help in becoming a good programmer? 2) To what extent are young people better at programming than older people? 3) To what extent are older people better at programming than young people? 4) How much do years of experience count?

Brief thoughts:

1) It helps a bit, but most people don't start very young. Solid foundation of math, logical thinking is important, though.

2) Young people have better memory are able to focus for longer periods of time, and learn quicker.

3) Older people have more knowledge of the world, and are better at communication and navigating social relations, which is very helpful at real world programming jobs, not so much at coding tests.

4) Experience is very important. Some of it generalizes to the entire programming domain, other parts are specific to languages and frameworks. Some fields change rapidly, and there experience is more transient.

Re: Ask HN: Is programming a “young person's game”?

#54

Post by noobermin »

Tbh, you don't need to win Olympiads or competitions to be a good programmer. In fact, competitions can often be distractions. Some programmers aren't even good at mathematics. It's not that learning more can't help you (as a rule, you can always learn more) but it certainly isn't an age thing.

There might be a certain demographic you won't fill, but tbh, that has no bearing on whether you can be a programmer first (just learning to program), or learning to program in order to contribute to say open source. As for getting a job, there are barriers tied to age which are primarily ageism, but that doesn't have anything to do with Olympiads than more to do with stereotypes about old people.

Re: Ask HN: Is programming a “young person's game”?

#55

Post by Fiahil »

onion2k wrote: post #50

Yes! And No! It is in the sense that it takes time to learn, and the industry moves fast . Keeping up with new tech and new trends while also having 'old person stuff' like a family, a bed time, other responsibilities like fixing your house and mowing your lawn, make it far harder than if you're a young person who can sit down at 6pm after a day at work and grind through tutorials until 3am instead. As you get older…

> grind through tutorials until 3am

I'm not sure this is a valuable use of your time. It's not an option a young person will miss as they get older.

Re: Ask HN: Is programming a “young person's game”?

#56

Post by PedroBatista »

Programming in a professional setting is mostly a young person’s game. You’re cheap, employer assumes you have all the time in the world and you’re more permeable to motivational speeches.

Programming in itself is a game for everyone and you’ll get better with time.

Re: Ask HN: Is programming a “young person's game”?

#57

Post by wingerlang »

> You only see top programmers who started as kids and probably won some Olympiads and programming competitions, and this continued in their 20s and maybe kept their skill up till 30s but that's about it. What do they do after that?

I kind of feel that you are making this up. I couldn't tell you of a single child prodigy that won competitions and disappeared in their 30s, the field is barely old enough for this to be a thing.

Re: Ask HN: Is programming a “young person's game”?

#58

Post by janmarsal »

No, programming is a keep-it-simple-stupid kind of game. I've got colleagues who started programming in their 20s, 30s even 40s. All the hard thinking has already been done by someone else. You just build with legos. It's more tedious and time consuming than it is mentally challenging. At least for the average joe software developer. All that academic fancy stuff I learned in the University turned out to be useless once I got a job. For most of those prodigies the harsh reality of 9-5 is probably a big disappointment.

Re: Ask HN: Is programming a “young person's game”?

#59

Post by nvln »

I'm in my early 40s, love programming, still very productive. The only trouble with being older is that you can see through the hype as new frameworks and libraries keep chasing their tails. If you aren't as hyped about those things you may find it hard to fit in. If you can find your clique or be a generalist and can build stuff as a solo engineer/designer/janitor, programming can be a lifelong craft that you meticulously develop, creating your own personal tools and libraries along the way. It can be very lucrative as well.

> I'm 30 and missed my chance to be a kid prodigy in programming or math

Programming is one of the most empowering things in human existence. You always have a chance to build something that impacts millions and you have to do the work only once. So, forget about the bygone chances, drop out of the race, build cool things and have fun. You may yet change the world for the better :)

Post reply on HN