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Before we backslap too much, note that the study isn't about programming skills, it is about sitting on SO all day answering questions instead of working.
The prevalence of discrimination toward extreme youth in the software industry is probably a historical artifact of the fact that it's a new industry, so for the most part young people were the ones who "got it." That being said, I think it cuts both ways. Both younger and older developers have advantages. Older developers tend to see pitfalls and avoid them better. They tend to have a more diverse skill set, better…
I am one of the older'ish programmers One day a young programmer flies into the office talking about the new MVC frameworks and how it would revolutionize how we write programs. He was mystified when I explained how MVC works to him without even looking at what framework he was ranting about. He asked how I knew? I told him it was invented at PARC in the 70's and I've used them starting in 1995 with the MFC C++ for d…
I think TypeScript is actually one of the more genuinely interesting developments recently--it's state of the art circa 1996 (Abadi and Cardelli's "A Theory of Objects.")
This is not really a dig at software development. There is, for example, very little in aerospace that has changed more than incrementally since the 1970's. But people have this perception of software development as this rapidly changing field where knowledge becomes obsolete in the course of a couple of years, when in reality the basic principles are really quite well-developed and mature. Keeping up with software development technology is mostly a matter of figuring out how people have gussied up old ideas with new syntax.
All of the interesting stuff now is domain specific. Algorithms for self-driving cars? Yeah, that's something that we didn't have 20 years ago.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are you referring to MVC in iOS programming? I would attribute the current popularity of MVC to Rails.
There were lots of MVC frameworks for web development that predated Rails. For example Struts.
I am one of the older'ish programmers One day a young programmer flies into the office talking about the new MVC frameworks and how it would revolutionize how we write programs. He was mystified when I explained how MVC works to him without even looking at what framework he was ranting about. He asked how I knew? I told him it was invented at PARC in the 70's and I've used them starting in 1995 with the MFC C++ for d…
Yup, it has happen to me too. I have around 20 years in software development. Around 9 years ago... Me: We can abstract most of that data access with a simple table oriented orm. Not all of it, but a good 80%. Younger Developer: Nope, That is what record sets are for, it is right here in the Microsoft docs (pointing to the ado api) ... 5 years later, he had moved to a different company, and I received a phone call fr…
Pragmatism might correlate with experience, and experience is only gained with time (thus age), but I'd be careful about jumping to that conclusion. There's nothing beyond assumption (this article included) that says younger people are always, or even usually, less pragmatic.
[Edit: That said your tech lead is an idiot if he thinks he should be paid more for a better understanding of technologies tangential to his core goal while he has a weaker understanding of the goal itself.]
The prevalence of discrimination toward extreme youth in the software industry is probably a historical artifact of the fact that it's a new industry, so for the most part young people were the ones who "got it." That being said, I think it cuts both ways. Both younger and older developers have advantages. Older developers tend to see pitfalls and avoid them better. They tend to have a more diverse skill set, better…
Or at least as long he/she isn't distracted by the next shiny new thing.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Being at least an average coder is a prerequisite to leading a team of coders. A team lead that can't code is like an Army officer that can't pass his physical tests or clean his rifle. He will not have the respect of the rank and file. A team lead (as opposed to a project manager) that can't code is doomed. (Notice I don't mention language, a good programmer can be coding in something new within a week or maybe two…
Agreed, but with a caveat: > a good programmer can be coding in something new within a week or maybe two and after a couple of months should be completely fluent. It's a risky choice. The project we were working on had very, very heavy emphasis on idiomatic Java. In this situation a good manager would need to recognize the deficit in the prospective lead and only ever accept the candidate if they have a rock-solid tr…
Edit: I'd love for this study to be meaningful, as I'm in my 30s. But it doesn't seem to be.