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

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

#21

Post by thekillerdev »

DigitalSea wrote: post #6

Age is irrelevant. It's all about what you know and what you're willing to know that determines whether or not you're good at something. I've worked with web developers twice my age in their 50's. Some of them started programming in their late 30's. It sounds like you're proficient enough, so you'll be fine. It's all in your head my friend. I often worry that being 25 myself is a cause for concern because non of my s…

Same boat here, 25, coding my way through life and none of my startup ideas have taken off.

I am not saying here that is good to have other people "failing with me", but is good to know and be aware that we are not unique, we are not the only one trying at this point of life.

Hope the best for the next ideas.

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

#22

Post by blue_smock »

nantes wrote: post #19
blue_smock wrote: post #12

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.

Awesome! Where are you located? There are often fantastic Python user groups/Meetups in decent sized cities. Austin has three, all with a different focus.

Wow, that's awesome! I'm actually in the Orange County area in California; unfortunately, there aren't any communities in that area but there's an active community in Los Angeles...I try to go from time to time.

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

#26

Post by keefe »

It's not the olympics, you don't have to be the top 100 in the world to matter.

I started at about 8yo... professionally at 16 and I'm 32 now. I think worrying about things like this is a proxy for accepting one's own aging and mortality.

Starting in my early youth gave me certain advantages, primarily in internalizing the underlying structures but it's the rare exception that has the access and parental support to gain such early life experience. Most of the time, the advantage is in spinning up on new projects - which is a relatively small % of the time spent working on projects.

I really think that being industrious will compensate for any advantage very quickly.

That being said, some people say it takes 10,000 hours to gain real expertise in a field and starting at 25 makes that more difficult.

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

#27

Post by monkeyspaw »

Nope.

It's a lot easier than you think to become a developer who can create products that have value.

OTOH, I've been coding for > 20 years, majored in CS, and I'm still light years away from the C hackers I see often around here.

Just depends on your goals. Keep improving. Web apps aren't difficult to become proficient at creating. Hacking the linux kernel or building realtime trading systems is a lot harder.

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

#29

Post by hackerboos »

>I've read several posts on hacker news whereby people starting out at 22 are somewhat discouraged.

I has some experience but I started my degree at 22 and got my first dev job at 25.

Firms will hire you if you are passionate and knowledgeable about your newly chosen field.

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

#30

Post by hilko »

hackerboos wrote: post #29

>I've read several posts on hacker news whereby people starting out at 22 are somewhat discouraged. I has some experience but I started my degree at 22 and got my first dev job at 25. Firms will hire you if you are passionate and knowledgeable about your newly chosen field.

This is so true. I'm by no means a 'proficient' developer, but I moved from what is often considered the 'lowest' field of academia, psychology and communications, into what is often considered the 'lowest' field of programming: front-end web development. The jobs offered me freedom, and now I find myself doing my work (with great pleasure, I might say!) to be financially stable, but with plenty of time for other stuff.

In just the past months I dove into more 'serious' javascript development, finding myself even bored by anything that just focuses on 'common' patterns of functional programming. Now I'm wrapping my head around Clojure and copious amounts of reading up on programming history, lisp, lambda calculus, test-driven development, and whatnot, with no clear idea of how this will help me 'further my career' as a front-ender.

And yet, I find myself understanding it, gaining a deeper understanding, and honestly being surprised at all of it because surely I can't be a 'serious' programmer.

Of course it could turn out I cannot be a 'serious' programmer, but so far I've been surprised at how easy or at least possible it has been for me, a 28 year-old non-programmer with no background in IT, to 'get' whatever it is that I decide to study.

And you know what? I don't even care. I'm having more fun than ever before, and my development serves my both in supporting myself and enjoying myself. For all I know I'll never be a 'proper' programmer, but god damnit I'm having fun trying. And thank god there's plenty of work to go around for us 'front-enders'. I'd be fine just doing basic js/jQuery work. It's a win-win situation!

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