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Software Developers after 40, 50 and 60 Who're Still Coding

belitsoft.com

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Re: Software Developers after 40, 50 and 60 Who're Still Coding

#31

Post by Alex3917 »

ronilan wrote: post #6
peapicker wrote: post #2

".. However, StackOverflow’s survey on age shows that there are just about 13% of developers after 40. Where are the others?" Obviously not on StackOverflow. Perhaps they have enough experience and knowledge to not need the site because they either know how to read tech books and sites to get the info they need when they have a problem using pre-existing docs, or conversely, are fully able to debug issues themselves.…

I don't understand how someone can "have enough experience and knowledge to not need the site" . I use StackOverflow practically all the time. I always think to myself, "yep, this (Wikipedia, YouTube and... yah HN) is what the internet is for" . But maybe I'm just too young. (I'm 47 ;) )

I think the idea is that after being a developer for 20+ years, one may either develop some intuition about how to use some package even if the documentation is poorly written, or else you have so much experience reading source code that doing so is almost as fast as reading the documentation.

I'm not saying that either of these is correct, but they could be plausible explanations.

Re: Software Developers after 40, 50 and 60 Who're Still Coding

#32

Post by SimonPStevens »

"StackOverflow’s survey on age shows that there are just about 13% of developers after 40. Where are the others?"

Not wasting time filling out online surveys?

I'm not even 40 yet and I realised online surveys were a waste of time years ago. :-)

A stackoverflow survey doesn't measure the answers of stackoverflow users. It measures the answers from the specific demographic of stackoverflow users who are inclined to answer surveys. Those demographics overlap but are not equal.

Re: Software Developers after 40, 50 and 60 Who're Still Coding

#34

Post by cableshaft »

bdcravens wrote: post #20
peapicker wrote: post #2

".. However, StackOverflow’s survey on age shows that there are just about 13% of developers after 40. Where are the others?" Obviously not on StackOverflow. Perhaps they have enough experience and knowledge to not need the site because they either know how to read tech books and sites to get the info they need when they have a problem using pre-existing docs, or conversely, are fully able to debug issues themselves.…

Or perhaps they are less likely to create an account.

That's my bet. I've gotten away without asking any questions on stack overflow since its genesis. There's usually enough already asked on there that I can synthesize the answer or trigger an idea for something to try that ends up working.

Re: Software Developers after 40, 50 and 60 Who're Still Coding

#35

Post by elorant »

SimonPStevens wrote: post #32

"StackOverflow’s survey on age shows that there are just about 13% of developers after 40. Where are the others?" Not wasting time filling out online surveys? I'm not even 40 yet and I realised online surveys were a waste of time years ago. :-) A stackoverflow survey doesn't measure the answers of stackoverflow users. It measures the answers from the specific demographic of stackoverflow users who are inclined to ans…

I'm 44, still writing code and I've never participated in a SO survey.

Re: Software Developers after 40, 50 and 60 Who're Still Coding

#36

Post by Tistel »

I'm 42, programming is the fun part of the job (meetings, nonsensical time estimates and travel tend to be worst part of the job). Had a computer my whole life (Vic-20, oh yeah!) I strongly agree with what others have said in the article: Keep learning new things. I did nothing but C++ for 13 years (console games) and felt like a dinosaur. Despite the fact that there are still (a few) C++ jobs out there, I made a point to avoid them. Did a python based app for a year (IPython is fantastic!). Did a GO app for a year (which was kind of interesting, only luke warm on the language for some reason). At the moment I am learning Elixir and Phoenix and still get the excited feeling when the program works. It is strange that such a well paid / interesting field has so few older people in it. One concern I have is that my hair is starting to turn grey so I think the HR process will get a bit trickier (planning on moving to more remote work so they can't see the grey :)).

Re: Software Developers after 40, 50 and 60 Who're Still Coding

#37

Post by jasonlotito »

maxxxxx wrote: post #13
peapicker wrote: post #2

".. However, StackOverflow’s survey on age shows that there are just about 13% of developers after 40. Where are the others?" Obviously not on StackOverflow. Perhaps they have enough experience and knowledge to not need the site because they either know how to read tech books and sites to get the info they need when they have a problem using pre-existing docs, or conversely, are fully able to debug issues themselves.…

I am 50 and use StackOverflow all the time. In my view StackOverflow (and Wikipedia) is one of the best things coming from the internet.

Did you fill out the survey?

Re: Software Developers after 40, 50 and 60 Who're Still Coding

#38

Post by ben174 »

SimonPStevens wrote: post #32

"StackOverflow’s survey on age shows that there are just about 13% of developers after 40. Where are the others?" Not wasting time filling out online surveys? I'm not even 40 yet and I realised online surveys were a waste of time years ago. :-) A stackoverflow survey doesn't measure the answers of stackoverflow users. It measures the answers from the specific demographic of stackoverflow users who are inclined to ans…

So much this. A problem with nearly all these statistics is you're gathering answers from the people who are the type of people who answer surveys. This often tends to be a less-private and younger crowd.

Re: Software Developers after 40, 50 and 60 Who're Still Coding

#40

Post by jimktrains2 »

bluedino wrote: post #19
raister wrote: post #8

What about Linus Torvalds? Born: Linus Benedict Torvalds, December 28, 1969 (age 47), Helsinki, Finland I guess he's still coding, right? Does it count?

Fabrice Bellward is 45, John Carmack is 46. Michael Abrash is probably in his mid-50's. Rob Pike, Guido Von Rossum, and Larry Wall are all still programming and they're in their 60's. I think it's safe to say you won't magically lose your programming ability as you get older.

But you do lose the patience to keep using what amounts to the reinvention of the wheel and having the same problems over and over, and you do lose much of your free time to other responsibilities, which manifests itself in not having the time to play with every new tech under the sun.
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