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It's official: developers get better with age. And scarcer.

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Re: It's official: developers get better with age. And scarcer.

#111

Post by 6ren »

I used to think younger developers were better, but with the experience of age, I now realize that older developers are better.

Honestly, though, I think programming is a "young man's game", partly because you are sharper, have more energy etc when young; but mostly because when everything is reinvented each decade, you are better off starting fresh, without being aware of other choices.

The exception is for higher-level tasks, such as marketing, managing people, strategic business decisions, and code architecture. Also, I would think, language/library/API/framework design. I hesitate a little, because many of these are based on the needs of current programmers, which the front-line troops know better because they are doing it (they are the users). However, for deeper insights, age has the benefit of seeing deeper patterns over decades, and over generations of usage. Most language designers seem to be older (but is that just because their languages are now old?)

Re: It's official: developers get better with age. And scarcer.

#112

Post by dusklight »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #92
dusklight wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's an open question how to measure developer productivity objectively. I don't think we really have a good way to answer this question right now, but definitely lines of code checked in is one of the worst. Checking in a 1k line class file with lots of dependencies that easily breaks when other code is changed, using a slow algorithm, with lots of difficult to follow code, would not be more productive than…

"When I say "older" developer, I mean the 40-50 year old who probably was a really good developer 10 years ago, got a steady, cushy job, with a salary that he/she is more than happy with, and stopped learning because he didn't need to anymore." Which I'd agree with, but that eviscerates your thesis about the new mind training regimen does it not? After all the learning engaged developer missed out on the training you…

In reference to your comment on discrimination.

http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html

Reading my original post, I think you are right I should have qualified myself better. I was just really upset by the tone of the OP. IMO the reason why many older developers are worse than younger developers is because they THINK they are better than the younger developers. They don't have the hunger to improve themselves anymore, and so they don't.

Re: It's official: developers get better with age. And scarcer.

#113

Post by sukuriant »

imack wrote: post #93

Honest question: what happens to developers after they are no longer "Developers"? As a 29-year-old I'm kind of freaked out by the fact that I'm on the older part of that distribution.

I do not have stats to base this claim, but when I worked at my last job, I heard from an employee in another department that the normal lifespan for a software developer was 7 years, after which they have some sort of career change, be it management or logging.

Re: It's official: developers get better with age. And scarcer.

#114

Post by jimbokun »

dusklight wrote: post #21

What this post shows me is that older developers are less willing to ask questions, less willing to admit when they don't know something, less willing to do anything to fix it. My personal experience is that older developers just don't get it. They haven't kept up with the exponential increases in productivity that we have had in the last 5 years. Things that used to take 2 days 10 years ago can be done in 2 minutes…

"They always want to work on only one thing at a time and get confused/ much slower if they have to work on multiple things, whereas younger developers will happily be able to switch in between tasks while waiting for the previous task to finish compiling/running without problems."

The younger developers get confused/much slower when they work on multiple things, too, they just don't realize it. I'm pretty sure there is experimental data showing that everyone performs worse when they switch tasks often.

I actually just watched The Social Network for the first time a couple of nights ago, and one of the things I appreciated most about the movie is how they would yell at people who tried to interrupt someone who was coding with a question ("Don't interrupt Chris, he's in the zone!"). I suspect that attitude had a lot to do with the productivity needed to get Facebook off the ground, and they were certainly all young people.

(Or maybe the writers of The Social Network just made it all up.)

Re: It's official: developers get better with age. And scarcer.

#115

Post by skeeterbug »

alanh wrote: post #94

Aaargh! The data doesn’t say this, all the data says is “Older StackOverflow users have disproportionately high SO reputation.” An alternate explanation is that for some reason older developers are more likely to be addicted to Stack Overflow. A big problem here is the unproven assertion that high SO reputation means you are a “better developer.” Does it really? (After all, with few exceptions, the more active you ar…

If you have a higher reputation and give correct answers, couldn't we then assume that the older developers have a wider range of knowledge to be able to participate in more responses? Also, it is not really clear how "better" is defined in this case. Maybe it is "better" == I know more technologies than you?

Re: It's official: developers get better with age. And scarcer.

#116

Post by groby_b »

reinhardt wrote: post #107
groby_b wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main question, if you really were to judge something like quality, is why older devs answer more questions. Is it your assumption that they are just more invested in educating others, or is it e.g. because they have a broader range of experience and can answer more/more difficult questions. As it is, this data set is merely an interesting conversation starter. I hope somebody takes it and does some research on it…

The cynic view: they may have more time on their hands to was^C^C^Cspend on StackOverflow.

Even if I subscribed to the cynical viewpoint - how come they do have that time? The snooty old dev in me counters the cynic with "Because we get stuff done" ;)

So, still, lots of room for a more detailed look.

Edit: The reply is of course tongue-in-check. The second reply to the GP seems to provide a better explanation.

Re: It's official: developers get better with age. And scarcer.

#119

Post by kmavm »

stiff wrote: post #83
kmavm wrote: post #37

Since I don't see this specifically addressed in the text: I suspect this is a classic case of survivorship bias. The same way the stock market looks better and better the further back you go, because you aren't tracking the stocks of companies that are no longer in business, developers probably look better and better the further they are into their careers, since all the ones who've fallen by the wayside probably we…

I think Clarke's first law applies to programmers as well: "When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong." When you are older you maybe really spend less time chasing dead ends, I agree with that, but to be fully sincere with oneself, some of those ends might end up not being that dead…

That's a great point. I try to actively fight conservatism, but it's probably a neurologically losing battle; as I get more experienced, I necessarily get more scarred, and will instinctively avoid the areas that have caused me professional pain. When this helps, we call it "learning," but in the limit it tends towards rigidity.

Re: It's official: developers get better with age. And scarcer.

#120

Post by divtxt »

rbanffy wrote: post #103
kmavm wrote: post #37

Since I don't see this specifically addressed in the text: I suspect this is a classic case of survivorship bias. The same way the stock market looks better and better the further back you go, because you aren't tracking the stocks of companies that are no longer in business, developers probably look better and better the further they are into their careers, since all the ones who've fallen by the wayside probably we…

I don't feel any smarter than I were on my 20's. OTOH, software has gotten much more complex. Mastering the Apple II ROM routines is one thing, but understanding how every piece in a complex web application (app server, rdbms, non-relational storage, cache) interact is much harder. After wrapping my brain around some concepts, it feels very thin. We rely on Google and the web to supplement our memories for things tha…

I find web development less enjoyable than 5 or 10 years ago because of the increasing size and complexity of the stack.

At least us old fogies have had the last 15 years to learn web development. How the hell do young programmers learn such a big stack in a few years? I'm guessing half using youthful energy and the other half skipped in blissful ignorance?! :)

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