Pervasive myths about older software developers

The thing is, when you're older, there's really no way to reach the younger generation. They aren't listening to you because you're older, for the most part, and they've been listening to their "out of touch" parents their whole lives. They won't understand until their your age, and then they'll have to deal with another younger generation.

This isn't a criticism of anyone, just my obeservation about why there is a gap.

It is a shame too, because youth has the energy and age has the wisdom, and if the two could be combined, companies would benefit.

Personally, I've grown a lot as a software developer because of my experience with project failures. I had one that turned my life upside down, but that helped me gain the attribute of fearlessness.

I've seen the worst that can happen, and that's given me both courage and maturity.

Apparently, the point needs to be made:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2204545

From anecdotal evidence I will put forward another theory. Because CS and programming are relatively new and rapidly growing fields a large number of programmers in the early years were random office workers who could type, press ganged into development duties. Education started to catch up in the 80s and 90s so young kids with a real grounding in fundamentals were coming into organizations staffed with older developers who didn't have a clue. On average, older developers were incompetent, not because they were older, but because they were less likely to a) have any formal education in what they were doing and b) a particular interest in what they were doing besides the paycheck.

Another "I have witnessed X" so "Y must be true" post.

I've been programming commercially for 32 years and in all that time, I have found very little correlation between age and ability to deliver quality software.

I have worked with younger, inexperienced, and uneducated programmers who were willing to learn, with minds like sponges and who were a pleasure to work with. They often found or thought of things the rest of us overlooked.

I have worked with younger, inexperienced, and well educated programmers who thought they knew better and were obstacles to progress.

I have worked with older programmers with the same one year's experience 22 times. Oy.

I have worked with older programmers with excellent domain knowledge and limited technical range. Their personality and willingness to succeed were often the key to progress.

I have worked with older programmers with excellent technical range and limited domain knowledge. Sometimes it's hard to teach an old dog new tricks, but when you can, results can be golden.

I have worked with brilliant older programmers with extensive experience and open minds. The best of all worlds.

(By the way, I have also worked with programmers of many ethnicities, female, handicapped, gay, Republican, religious, even left-handed, and have found little or no correlation between their "description" and their "performance". One of the beauties of programming is that the easiest way to evaluate your performance is through your work itself and not much else.)