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

45, self-employed. I create and sell an iOS/Android plugin for use with Cordova, React Native and NativeScript apps. I love my job.

I'm 48 and use StackOverflow... not so much because I can't read tech books and docs, but because often times it's faster to at least get a lead (and to be fair, I'm usually using a search engine which in turn places StackOverflow answers towards the top of my result list). Also, if it's tech that I'm less familiar with, I'm often times looking for how others think about the issue I'm looking at which you often times don't get from documentation. Sometimes, I'm looking for contrary arguments if I've decided on an approach/usage but am less confident of my direction.

Now I do use my experience and knowledge to decide if I think any given answer on StackOverflow is likely to be "correct" in some sense (and by no means are all the answers, accepted or not, good all the time)... and there are occasions where I end up just going back to straight docs.

I have worked with other very smart over 40's (and over 50's) that do something similar to what I do with StackOverflow. I know none of us would take an online survey either.

I agree, but I think you lose that patience for reinvention in about year 6, not year 21. So, dealing with it becomes part of being a software developer. If you can't, you won't get to year 7.

And yes, there are more responsibilities with age, which means you also have to improve your time management. But, that's not unique to software developers. Waiting to see how new technology evolves before jumping on the band wagon is a good time management strategy for software developers.

Yeah, and I feel there's not much point contributing answers either, because it seems most situations are either:

1. Simple and quickly snapped up by other users who are aggressively trying to grow their reputation on the site (perhaps with more free-time than I) and there's a first-response advantage that crowds out later answers.

2. Duplicate of something else. Why bother making a good answer when it'll get closed because somebody else happens to think a different question is the "better" one?

3. Way outside my expertise and it's probably better for everyone involved if I don't try to answer when I'm not sure.

So in a way SO is a victim of its own success when it comes to lowered engagement.

P.S.: I've even had an answer I was proud of converted into a "community wiki" just for a few tiny wording changes, with the side-effect that I get no reputation from it. So yeah, it seems like a rat-race.

> Obviously not on StackOverflow

Definitely. The content on Stack Overflow is heavily weighted towards languages and specialties less likely to be of interest to older programmers. We (I'm 51) are far more likely to be working on infrastructure and devops than on front-end. To do it, we're using C, maybe C++, maybe Python or even perl and bash, not Java, definitely not JavaScript or any of its variants, or Erlang, or Clojure, or whatever. Not always, but much of the time. The things we need to know are scantly represented on SO.

The atmosphere on SO is probably also more of a turn-off for older programmers. Those who are established don't need to bulk up their karma on some website, and the one-upmanship from the resident karma whores gets tiresome really fast. So does the rules lawyering that leads to answers being hidden, questions being closed, and so on. The few times I've found myself there, it has seemed like a game and a distraction that I just don't have the time or inclination to keep playing, so I get out and don't come back for months. For those with broad work responsibilities plus homes and families and other outside connections, life's too short to spend much of it in a virtual mosh pit. HN is enough for that. ;)