Ask HN: Is 25 too late to become a proficient developer?

thank you all very much for your advise. I'm starting today. As far as languages, I picked django because I know python. I hope the future for that language is somewhat bright.

no

ABSOLUTELY NOT!

I will be 38 next month. I completed my thesis for grad school in 2010 (35 y.o.). I started taking prerequisites for CS school back in 2000 (25 y.o.) because I had a Bachelors in something totally unrelated to CS. I liked programming when I did a bit in HS but never pursued it until I took a CS101 programming course using C++.

I'm nothing special but I am proud of what I can do. It is never too late, sure as hell not at 22 or 25 or even much later.

To be fair you probably won't grow up to be Linus Torvalds, Bjarne Stroustrup or James Gosling, but then again how many of us will be? I'm still gainfully employed, I'm doing ok, started learning Rails on my own 18 months ago, working on other web based mobile frameworks. It is never too late. And depending on how much time you spend on it maybe you could be another one of these guys, who the hell is anyone to say?

The one thing you have to be when learning anything with programming is you need to be persistent. I hit the wall more times than I can count. You need to reach out and ask for help without worrying about looking stupid. Some of the assholes will insult you or look down at you ("you couldn't figure it out yourself? loser...") but the hell with those people.

Mobile dev is probably not 5 years (feel free to correct me) meaning if you know nothing right now the experts really don't know that much more than you do now. I've heard of 40+ year olds going back to school to be a doctor. Being a doctor takes an awful lot more time than being a good coder, and it wasn't too late for them and it sure as hell aint too late for you. If you are persistent, curious and some level of intelligence is enough to do well.

One thing though - as far as the age thing, some code shops might stay away from the older folks because they want cheap talent with no life or responsibilities. Those opportunities may not work out for you but you don't want them.

Who ever told gave you the impression that youth is so important to be a good coder does not know what they are taking about. Carpe Diem my friend!

Man. At 25, you are still so incredibly young, you have no idea. I am 30 and still feel incredibly young, but you already have a 5 year jump on me, which is huge. Take advantage of it and don't waste it. You're already on the right path by looking to be a developer, which leaves the world open to you. Maybe you'll get tired of working on other people's stuff when you reach 28 or so, and maybe you'll start a company that you're passionate about and exit by the time you're 30. Then you can spend the rest of your life swimming with sharks, looking through telescopes and learning more about physics, or whatever it is that excites you. 25 is the ideal age to make this transition. Do it.

25 is too late if you want to become a professional athlete perhaps, for anything involving brain skills, you're still a kid.