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Why Ageism Never Gets Old

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Re: Why Ageism Never Gets Old

#201

Post by moduspol »

walshemj wrote: post #198
moduspol wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's ageism if one person is selected based on being willing to work more for less money. That's just a labor market. There's an argument to be made that 20-somethings shouldn't work more than 40 hours a week or should require higher pay. Or that employers should place more value on the work of more experienced developers. Or both. But I don't think experienced developers should be exempt from keeping w…

But that's not the legal and societal POV is it would you say that applies to Race Sex Gender and so on?

Of course. I've never seen someone argue they were being discriminated against on the basis of race, and that they know this because someone else offered to do more work for less money and were chosen.

I agree it is currently popular to assume "-ism" simply from disparate outcomes, but I don't think it's right (in both the "correctness" and "morally proper" definitions of the word).

Re: Why Ageism Never Gets Old

#202

Post by humanrebar »

jasode wrote: post #108
humanrebar wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's worth noting that the median age of an American is 41. That we're discussing people in that age range as counterexamples kind of proves the point.

>median age of an American is 41. That we're discussing people in that age range as counterexamples kind of proves the point. Don't take my previous post as a complete dataset. It was only coincidence that I happen to list programmers in their 40s off the top of my head. Here are some more in their 60s: - Google also hired Vint Cerf (TCPIP) at age 62. - Amazon AWS recently hired James Gosling (Java) age ~62. - PayPal…

> ...will actually discriminate against the young 20-somethings for certain roles.

Sure. They won't seem "authoritative" or something vague like that. They'll be passed up for leadership roles because they're too "green".

But you can have discrimination against young 20-somethings and the 40+ crowd at the same time.

Re: Why Ageism Never Gets Old

#203

Post by walshemj »

jasode wrote: post #29

First, ageism is not just a SV phenomenon. For example, see the very young White House aides in Clinton, Bush, & Obama administrations.[1] Second, the tech companies that have a reputation for favoring 20-somethings will still hire older workers for certain positions. - Even though Mark Zuckerberg said, "younger people are just smarter" , he hired an "old" person like Sheryl Sandberg to be COO at age ~38. - Bill Gate…

So? by definition aides aka SPADS (special political advisors) are junior political wonks who want to make politics a career they do a PPE at Oxbridge work for a pittance for a party or MP/Congressman or Senator for a chance to climb the greasy pole.

Re: Why Ageism Never Gets Old

#204

Post by rakete »

Nursie wrote: post #8
jeremyjh wrote: post #3

> In the nineteen-twenties, an engineer’s “half life of knowledge”—the time it took for half of his expertise to become obsolete—was thirty-five years. In the nineteen-sixties, it was a decade. Now it’s five years at most, and, for a software engineer, less than three. This sort of mythology is NOT helping. An experienced Software Engineer has valuable skills that do not age at all. Yes there are new languages and fr…

I've worked in C, embedded and server-side, for about 15 years of my 17 year career. Companies I've worked with recently are having trouble finding C-capable developers, particularly C developers who have the first clue about 'modern' developments like CI and CD, or git. C is a language invented in the 70s. If you kept up with thread APIS when they became usable in the late 90s you could quite easily have had a 40 ye…

Would you mind sharing some contact information for these companies looking for C developers? I have been working as a contractor myself and while I currently seem to have no problem finding projects involving javascript, companies actively looking for C developers seem to be little shy in my area.

I suspect you are from the US, and I am from Europe, so this might be a problem. But still, if you are willing to write me an email, my address can be found through my github account that is linked in my profile.

Re: Why Ageism Never Gets Old

#205

Post by jasode »

walshemj wrote: post #203
jasode wrote: post #29

First, ageism is not just a SV phenomenon. For example, see the very young White House aides in Clinton, Bush, & Obama administrations.[1] Second, the tech companies that have a reputation for favoring 20-somethings will still hire older workers for certain positions. - Even though Mark Zuckerberg said, "younger people are just smarter" , he hired an "old" person like Sheryl Sandberg to be COO at age ~38. - Bill Gate…

So? by definition aides aka SPADS (special political advisors) are junior political wonks who want to make politics a career they do a PPE at Oxbridge work for a pittance for a party or MP/Congressman or Senator for a chance to climb the greasy pole.

>by definition aides aka SPADS (special political advisors) are junior political wonks

There must be some misunderstanding. Are you from the UK and unfamiliar with the USA?

To be clear, there is no "by definition" that the office aide sitting next to the President of the USA must be a junior 20-something worker. There is no "junior" in the definition of that role. Theoretically, the gatekeeper desks can be staffed by a 49-year old or a 70-year old elderly person that wants to work at the White House. My point is that the 20-somethings will be favored over older workers in _non-SV_ jobs like that. People keep making the mistake that that ageism is mostly specific to Silicon Valley. It isn't. It's common everywhere in non-computer industries.

Re: Why Ageism Never Gets Old

#206

Post by throttledagain »

Once again the top comments are about how terrible young engineers are.

How about young people stop being ageist when the olders stop talking about what idiots they are. oh, and idiot is the best of it. Entitled, lazy, spoiled millennials. Ruined by their participation awards.

Ageism isn't right, but I'm sick of the one sided conversation on this.

Re: Why Ageism Never Gets Old

#207

Post by breakyerself »

jeremyjh wrote: post #3

> In the nineteen-twenties, an engineer’s “half life of knowledge”—the time it took for half of his expertise to become obsolete—was thirty-five years. In the nineteen-sixties, it was a decade. Now it’s five years at most, and, for a software engineer, less than three. This sort of mythology is NOT helping. An experienced Software Engineer has valuable skills that do not age at all. Yes there are new languages and fr…

Kids playing with building blocks that adults made trying to find a configuration that strikes pay dirt. If everyone over 35 in the tech industry disappeared the world would come unglued fast.

Re: Why Ageism Never Gets Old

#208

Post by throttledagain »

Swinx43 wrote: post #7
jeremyjh wrote: post #3

> In the nineteen-twenties, an engineer’s “half life of knowledge”—the time it took for half of his expertise to become obsolete—was thirty-five years. In the nineteen-sixties, it was a decade. Now it’s five years at most, and, for a software engineer, less than three. This sort of mythology is NOT helping. An experienced Software Engineer has valuable skills that do not age at all. Yes there are new languages and fr…

This mythology leads directly to horribly created software that will either ensure many terrible security breaches in the future or the continued proliferation of "magic" throughout a product. One of the issues is using the word "engineer" for any of the brogrammer types. an engineer in any other proper engineering discipline does not become worthless with age, their experience actually counts for something. Somehow…

> 20-something brogrammers

You'd prefer 50 year old geezers.

Oh wait I'm not supposed to use that term. We only get to call young people nasty names. Sorry everyone.

Re: Why Ageism Never Gets Old

#209

Post by moduspol »

majormajor wrote: post #197
moduspol wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for sharing this--and sorry in advance if I came off abrasive. I just think the key difference in our industry is that it's far more punishing than others if you're not keeping up to date with relevant skills. I'm 29 and my last search was two years ago. My last job had me primarily doing ColdFusion-based web development and occasionally iOS development. A big part of the reason I left was specifically to avoi…

> But despite being 27, I wasn't immune from having to branch out, learn new things, and become passionate about something to find a new position. Respectfully: our industry doesn't allow for one to stick to the same skillset for long. Your post reinforces what I had feared, which is that people are blaming ageism while sitting on a skillset that is no longer competitive. That's shortsighted and your employer's proce…

I'm not saying it's the definitively the most cost-effective way to hire. It very well could be short-sighted.

I think your view is 100% valid and could very well be correct. The key point is I don't think people who disagree should be presumed "-ist."

And if you are correct: Good news! As a hiring manager, you apparently have a wider selection of better candidates because your competitors aren't properly assessing value in the right places.

I would argue, though, that being able to readily assess someone's experience in a modern framework you're actually using might be a less risky hire than assessing someone's abilities in decades-old technologies you don't use, hoping their lack of horizon-broadening over the last ten years hasn't been due to complacency, and paying them more just to find out.

But I could be wrong! And that's OK. We should be able to disagree without the "-ist" so often.

Re: Why Ageism Never Gets Old

#210

Post by WalterBright »

Swinx43 wrote: post #7
jeremyjh wrote: post #3

> In the nineteen-twenties, an engineer’s “half life of knowledge”—the time it took for half of his expertise to become obsolete—was thirty-five years. In the nineteen-sixties, it was a decade. Now it’s five years at most, and, for a software engineer, less than three. This sort of mythology is NOT helping. An experienced Software Engineer has valuable skills that do not age at all. Yes there are new languages and fr…

This mythology leads directly to horribly created software that will either ensure many terrible security breaches in the future or the continued proliferation of "magic" throughout a product. One of the issues is using the word "engineer" for any of the brogrammer types. an engineer in any other proper engineering discipline does not become worthless with age, their experience actually counts for something. Somehow…

Ironically, working longer hours makes one less productive (in engineering).
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