No, women can program too.
Ask HN: Is programming a “young person's game”?
71–80 of 151 posts
Re: Ask HN: Is programming a “young person's game”?
#72Most of the best programmers I know are old and learned to program on machines that now seem horrible. Maybe that's why they're good.
It's na area where accumulated experience and technical knowledge matter a lot. Practice dominates over theory but you have to understand some nontrivial things too. All that favors older programmers.
Re: Ask HN: Is programming a “young person's game”?
#73Maybe competitive programming is a young man's game, but that's a very specific kind of programming, and not very representative of what typical programmers usually do.
But programming in general can be done at any age. You have an obvious experience advantage if you start young that is not specific to programming, but it is not at all a requirement.
Re: Ask HN: Is programming a “young person's game”?
#74Do you want to be a "kid prodigy" or do you want to learn and build cool things? If you want to become better at math, read math. If you want to become a better programmer, study concepts and write code. No one can tell you how far you can go. Certainly not people on the internet who just read 5 lines of a post you made.
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Re: Ask HN: Is programming a “young person's game”?
#75"You only see top" - This goes for everything in the world.
I take it you kind of mean that unless you're in the visible top, there's no reason to do it?
That's a bleak way of looking at life.. Remember everything is a bell-shaped curve, chances are, you'll be under the fat part of that curve with most of the rest of us..
Only the long tails are seen, the very-bad ones who are on public display (for better or worse) for their terrible decisions, and the very-good ones who are hailed as brilliant super-humans..
I'm having a hard time finding an analogy.. Programming is one of the fields, like carpentry, where you have a venn-diagram situation, two circles with some intersection.. One circle is "Hobby" other circle is "Job".. You'll find people who have programming as a hobby, but drive a bus for living.. You'll find people who have programming as a job, but play tennis as a hobby.. And then finally, you'll find people who have programming as both a hobby and a job..
There is only weak correlation between skill and in which circle you are.. There is stronger correlation between how much programming you've done, and how good you are..
Now.. For stuff like football, you don't have this situation, sure, there are professional football players, but they're really the long tail.. Most people in the world that play football do not do it as a job, and they don't expect to be part of the "seen top".. They have a good time.
For stuff like being a cashier, you'll probably not find many doing it purely as a hobby, entirely for it's own sake, but you will find a lot doing it as a job.. Do you think those people care if they're part of the "seen top" ? They care much less about being the best, and more about being good enough to keep their job.
In football, you can only make a living if you're in the visible top.. In casheering, you can make a living if you're not incompetent.
In respect to potential enjoyment, software and carpentry is more like football, it can be fun and something you do because you enjoy it. In respect to job security, software and carpentry are more like being a cashier, you don't have to be specially good, average is sufficient for holding a job.
Re: Ask HN: Is programming a “young person's game”?
#76Yes. Learning to program is something you need to do young unless you have a decently nimble mind with a firm foundation in logic and math.
The vast vast vast majority of well-paid programmers (not frontend devs) are upper-middle class (within their country) who generally have a solid family foundation with one or both parents involved in technology either professionally or as a hobby.
It is very difficult for someone over 25 without a solid understanding of college level algebra and statistics to ramp up into a professional programmer/engineer.
The caveat to all of this is if you're willing to work until you make it. Pretty much anything can be done with enough work; but if you're 30, not good at college level algebra, don't have 3 hours a day to spend learning, practicing, studying, and contributing for 3 years you aren't likely to become a paid professional.
Re: Ask HN: Is programming a “young person's game”?
#77You can be Grug:
Software engineering needs ten self-aware Grugs for every child prodigy.
Getting in might be hard though. See, I’ve been on the hiring side and guilty as charged, I have passed on people aiming for Junior positions later in life. Not because ageism or anything, but because I need to make sure I have someone who just likes tinkering and staring at a monitor the whole day, not someone who figured to do a career change for better money. The second motivation is a recipe for disaster. You have to like this in order to do it well.
And this has to be visible already on the resume.
Re: Ask HN: Is programming a “young person's game”?
#78Unpopular 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 correctne…
> I think greenfield development is a young man’s game
Most of my work, these days (and for the last decade), has been “greenfield.” I think that new designs benefit greatly from an experienced hand.
Much of my work remains fairly static, with occasional updates to stay relevant (I retire stuff that I no longer want to maintain), as I do tend to get it right, early in the development cycle, and the stuff that has taken off, has been farmed out to larger (younger) teams, who do a marvelous job of maintaining and extending my original work.
Re: Ask HN: Is programming a “young person's game”?
#79No.
Re: Ask HN: Is programming a “young person's game”?
#80I will just say for myself.
I am 42 now. My longest problem was not about programming, but what to program. For a few years now, I have tried to hone the problems around this question, at leas where I can. For myself, I still struggle with it, but I given myself to take one small thing at a time and not worry too much about bigger goals.
However, I still care what to do. Sometimes I have a strong opinion on what to do, but I am in a situation where others around me mostly have no opinion or will never answer the question for whatever reason. I worried a lot what "their" opinion was, but at this point, the ambition is something I have to do - if I see something to fix, I will make a decision to do it. For many, they don't have that opportunity, for sure (like those who program for their CVs.)
To get back to the question directly - it's not what you describe. There will be a few who are very sure of themselves and can roll with it. Some of us take years to build that confidence, but knowing what to do and doing it is very much an important skill, no matter what age. I am also under the opinion that where I am and where I can be is not decided by business processes, but my own will. (Sometimes I need to continue to take my own advice.)