What they say about age is true • Hacker News Board

Re: What they say about age is true

#51

Post by dieterrams » Sun, Aug 29, 2010, 10:29 PM UTC

pg wrote: post #15

maddalab wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The grumpy-ness aside which is difficult to judge in an unbiased manner and every one for himself, the question is still relevant, and something that I can relate to tho not being in the affected age segment. I look around at my last 2 work places and have yet to meet more than the occasional mid-40s professional who is in positions of technical ownership. Most of them have moved into positions of management (paper p…

The answer may be related to the early age at which mathematicians seem to peak. Another factor is the rate of change in technology. Mere experience may be an obstacle there. When you start knowing nothing and pick a technology to learn, you naturally tend to pick the newest one. Whereas for an old person, learning new technologies is something you do out of duty as much as eagerness. An old person learning new techn…

> The answer may be related to the early age at which mathematicians seem to peak.

I may have been searching badly, but I couldn't really find anything to support this idea, at least in terms of a cognitive deficit. The following was the best discussion about mathematicians and age that I found:

http://sps.nus.edu.sg/~limchuwe/articles/youth.html

Bullet points:

- Mean age of best contribution by mathematicians is 38.8 (based on counting references to research by historians and biographers). This is roughly the same for other SET researchers.

- The Fields Medal cannot be awarded to mathematicians over the age of 40, which skews the mean age of mathematicians receiving their field's most prestigious award.

- As mathematicians get older, they take on more administrative work, have families, etc., which reduces the time and energy they have to devote to research. (I'm reminded of how Andrew Wiles basically shut out the world while proving Fermat's Last Theorem.)

- Rapid expansion of the field meant an increasing proportion of mathematicians were young, thus more discoveries were by young people.

- Math is a field where someone can make a great contribution without having acquired a large body of knowledge.

- Young math prodigies get a disproportionate share of attention.

Re: What they say about age is true

#52

Post by mikecane » Sun, Aug 29, 2010, 10:44 PM UTC

>>>No one offers me a place in new startups.

Pretend this was not written by him, because I don't want this to come off as attacking anyone.

Reading just that alone, my reaction is, "Well, why SHOULD they?"

Isn't having coding skills the same as having made a living as a writer? I don't see novelists complaining that no one has "invited" them to write books. They do it without any money up front in the hopes someone will like it and publish it (some self-publish in e, these days).

I thought being able to code was like a ticket to mint money, if you had a great idea and the willingness to push at it. Isn't that how everything on the Net came about? Maybe I'm just missing something here. But the fact remains if you sit around waiting for an "invite" to anything, you're bound to be waiting a very, very long time.

I'd rather be doing something than waiting any day.

Re: What they say about age is true

#53

Post by DannoHung » Sun, Aug 29, 2010, 11:14 PM UTC

ojbyrne wrote: post #46

pg wrote: post #5

Ironically while arguing one side of the case he becomes an example supporting the other. He sounds so grumpy and closed minded. Who'd want to hire him? His thesis that technology hasn't changed is false in any case. E.g. while the fundamentals of algorithms haven't changed, that sort of knowledge is less central than it used to be; for better or worse, software development seems to be evolving into something where y…

Not exactly thrilled by the use of the word "grumpy" since its a typical code word used to denigrate people over forty, very much like "pushy" blacks and "bitchy" women. If Dave was 25, I'd almost guarantee you wouldn't use that word. In fact just by using that single word you've strengthened his argument.

Disgruntled? No?

Well, you know what I say about people who complain about "codewords"; provide a better word or shut the fuck up.

Re: What they say about age is true

#54

Post by mustpax » Sun, Aug 29, 2010, 11:22 PM UTC

dpritchett wrote: post #50

mustpax wrote: post #45

If I can't get into the game, I can't imagine there's much chance for most other people in their 50's to play a role. The arrogance of this statement is just mind boggling. Why exactly does the author think he's orders of magnitude more employable than other engineers of his age group?

If you want to parse that extra-pedantically it looks like Dave's just self-assessing himself as being in the 51st percentile of 50ish devs. I'm pretty sure everyone thinks they're above average.

Please. He's saying that, if he can't do it, others of similar age must be hopeless. That simply means he believes he's at the top of his field, not just above average.

Re: What they say about age is true

#55

Post by tbrownaw » Sun, Aug 29, 2010, 11:23 PM UTC

ojbyrne wrote: post #46

pg wrote: post #5

Ironically while arguing one side of the case he becomes an example supporting the other. He sounds so grumpy and closed minded. Who'd want to hire him? His thesis that technology hasn't changed is false in any case. E.g. while the fundamentals of algorithms haven't changed, that sort of knowledge is less central than it used to be; for better or worse, software development seems to be evolving into something where y…

Not exactly thrilled by the use of the word "grumpy" since its a typical code word used to denigrate people over forty, very much like "pushy" blacks and "bitchy" women. If Dave was 25, I'd almost guarantee you wouldn't use that word. In fact just by using that single word you've strengthened his argument.

It is, really? I know I've heard all of those words used for people not in the groups you say they're code for, and hadn't been aware of any such associations.

Re: What they say about age is true

#56

Post by brilliant » Mon, Aug 30, 2010, 1:28 AM UTC

ojbyrne wrote: post #46

pg wrote: post #5

Ironically while arguing one side of the case he becomes an example supporting the other. He sounds so grumpy and closed minded. Who'd want to hire him? His thesis that technology hasn't changed is false in any case. E.g. while the fundamentals of algorithms haven't changed, that sort of knowledge is less central than it used to be; for better or worse, software development seems to be evolving into something where y…

Not exactly thrilled by the use of the word "grumpy" since its a typical code word used to denigrate people over forty, very much like "pushy" blacks and "bitchy" women. If Dave was 25, I'd almost guarantee you wouldn't use that word. In fact just by using that single word you've strengthened his argument.

That's what they call a "dog whistle" term.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog-whistle_politics

Re: What they say about age is true

#57

Post by tomjen3 » Mon, Aug 30, 2010, 1:43 AM UTC

neilk wrote: post #40

tomjen3 wrote: post #21

I call bullshit. If there where a systematic discrimination against any group of people, some startup could win big by hirering these people that are as good, but nobody seem to be willing to pay for. But since not a single one has done so (at least publically), something else must be stopping them.

That argument is frequently made to deny the existence of any form of discrimination. Note that it would have applied to say, black people in the 1950s in the USA.

Except one thing, you where likely to get into trouble if you had a black man hired to do what would have been considered a white mans job, so the black guy was strictly speaking not worth the same as a white man because he would (in directly, but pretty certainly) cause you problems with your customer.

That is not true today in Silicon Wally, because nobody knows who wrote the code one is currently using.

Re: What they say about age is true

#58

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Aug 30, 2010, 2:12 AM UTC

DannoHung wrote: post #53

ojbyrne wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not exactly thrilled by the use of the word "grumpy" since its a typical code word used to denigrate people over forty, very much like "pushy" blacks and "bitchy" women. If Dave was 25, I'd almost guarantee you wouldn't use that word. In fact just by using that single word you've strengthened his argument.

Disgruntled? No? Well, you know what I say about people who complain about "codewords"; provide a better word or shut the fuck up.

[deleted]

Re: What they say about age is true

#59

Post by pg » Mon, Aug 30, 2010, 2:23 AM UTC

ojbyrne wrote: post #46

pg wrote: post #5

Ironically while arguing one side of the case he becomes an example supporting the other. He sounds so grumpy and closed minded. Who'd want to hire him? His thesis that technology hasn't changed is false in any case. E.g. while the fundamentals of algorithms haven't changed, that sort of knowledge is less central than it used to be; for better or worse, software development seems to be evolving into something where y…

Not exactly thrilled by the use of the word "grumpy" since its a typical code word used to denigrate people over forty, very much like "pushy" blacks and "bitchy" women. If Dave was 25, I'd almost guarantee you wouldn't use that word. In fact just by using that single word you've strengthened his argument.

It's impossible to imagine that post being written by someone who was 25. Seriously; go back and read it.

Re: What they say about age is true

#60

Post by maxawaytoolong » Mon, Aug 30, 2010, 2:42 AM UTC

ojbyrne wrote: post #46

pg wrote: post #5

Ironically while arguing one side of the case he becomes an example supporting the other. He sounds so grumpy and closed minded. Who'd want to hire him? His thesis that technology hasn't changed is false in any case. E.g. while the fundamentals of algorithms haven't changed, that sort of knowledge is less central than it used to be; for better or worse, software development seems to be evolving into something where y…

Not exactly thrilled by the use of the word "grumpy" since its a typical code word used to denigrate people over forty, very much like "pushy" blacks and "bitchy" women. If Dave was 25, I'd almost guarantee you wouldn't use that word. In fact just by using that single word you've strengthened his argument.

Winer is beyond grumpy. He's pathologically negative about everything. His whole blog is just a series of complaints. He also doesn't seem to program anymore, or know what he is talking about. Why would anyone want to hire him to do anything, regardless of his age? In contrast you have late 40s-early 50s guys like Brandon Eich and Douglas Crockford who are positive and relevant, and do uh, seem to know what makes Javascript different than C. I mean, really...