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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.

#71

Post by pflats »

forgotAgain wrote: post #61
pflats wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you say that? Teachers have an incredibly high attrition rate. Barely half of the new teacher classes make it 5 years. The vast majority of the highly-regarded teachers I know are ones who have been doing it for 25 years or more.

The original topic was: "It's official: developers get better with age. And scarcer." I was answering the posted question "Is there any other career where this would not be accepted as a given?". So my post was that for teachers it is not accepted as given that they get better and scarcer with age. I did not make a statement whether that was true or not, just that it was not accepted as a given. In support of my view…

I see your point, but I'm not quite sure that the two things go hand in hand.

If the vast majority of developers were publically financed and had LIFO laws, I'd imagine that there'd be calls to end that practice as well. In both cases, though, I'd argue it's outliers that are the source of the consternation.

I think most education reform advocates would agree teachers get better as they gain experience.

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

#72

Post by juiceandjuice »

andrewcooke wrote: post #45
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…

is it fair to call it a bias in this case? it doesn't alter the conclusion that older developers are both better and scarcer, on average. [disclaimer: 44 yo ;o] [ps. google has mitigated memory loss, i suspect.]

You are 100% right, a developer is a developer, so it's not bias. It could even be argued that the reason there are less older developers is because the better ones went into management and are no longer active developers.

Now, this all assumes that developer activity on Stack Overflow is correlated roughly equivalently over most ages. If it is, then these plainly state that for any random developer you would interview, they are more likely to be more knowledgable (according to the definition extracted by Stack Overflow activity) the older they are. The fact that there may be fewer developers at an older age is irrelevant.

Disclaimer: I'm 25

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

#73

Post by gvb »

strlen wrote: post #65

I don't disagree with the conclusion: people who aren't as dedicated to or good at programming transition to people or product/program/project management[1]; the remaining folk receive additional experience which allows them to capitalize further on their passion and talent. However, this isn't exactly proven by the data: what Stackoverflow shows is that older developers are better at talking intelligently about prog…

I thought I had a counter example with Yukihiro Matsumoto and Ruby, but Yukihiro was born April 14, 1965 and Ruby was released December 21, 1995. Thirty years an a handful of months.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yukihiro_Matsumoto

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruby_%28programming_language%29...

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

#74

Post by trentonstrong »

I think there might also be another selection bias here, in that StackOverflow might be a bit self-selecting for developers who know their stuff.

It's hard to say what this says about developers as a whole, including the ones not on SO, which I assume is a large number.

An alternative hypothesis might be this: Good developers get better over time, whatever that means.

I would suspect that people who form bad habits early on don't enjoy the same benefits of experience as those who built on solid foundations.

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

#75

Post by gbelote »

maresca wrote: post #47
gbelote wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think a 45-year-old developer has inherently more free time than a 25-year-old. Given that a 45-year-old is more likely to have a family than a 25-year-old, I'd expect them to have less free time.

While this is true, you also don't see many 45-year-olds doing 60 and 70 hour work weeks.

Yes, but presumably they aren't spending those extra 20-30 hours writing StackOverflow answers.

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

#76

Post by [deleted] »

juiceandjuice wrote: post #72
andrewcooke wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

is it fair to call it a bias in this case? it doesn't alter the conclusion that older developers are both better and scarcer, on average. [disclaimer: 44 yo ;o] [ps. google has mitigated memory loss, i suspect.]

You are 100% right, a developer is a developer, so it's not bias. It could even be argued that the reason there are less older developers is because the better ones went into management and are no longer active developers. Now, this all assumes that developer activity on Stack Overflow is correlated roughly equivalently over most ages. If it is, then these plainly state that for any random developer you would intervi…

[deleted]

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

#77

Post by varjag »

rawsyntax wrote: post #68
zdw wrote: post #8

Age correlates with experience. If you've been something longer, you've had time to learn what works and what doesn't, and why. Thus, you can do a better job at guiding people who are newer to the material.

But if you started programming at 50... that's different than having done it for the last 30 years.

I doubt there are enough such cases to distort the statistics.

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

#78

Post by arohner »

raganwald wrote: post #34

Tell HN: On a barely related subject, tomorrow is my 49th birthday.

So that's why you're such a good blogger!

Thanks for blogging and contributing on HN, you've really improved my understanding of software, and how to think about software.

Happy Birthday.

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

#79

Post by [deleted] »

juiceandjuice wrote: post #72
andrewcooke wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

is it fair to call it a bias in this case? it doesn't alter the conclusion that older developers are both better and scarcer, on average. [disclaimer: 44 yo ;o] [ps. google has mitigated memory loss, i suspect.]

You are 100% right, a developer is a developer, so it's not bias. It could even be argued that the reason there are less older developers is because the better ones went into management and are no longer active developers. Now, this all assumes that developer activity on Stack Overflow is correlated roughly equivalently over most ages. If it is, then these plainly state that for any random developer you would intervi…

[deleted]

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

#80

Post by engtech »

There's one huge hole in the analysis: the dataset.

The older someone is, the less chance they'll spend time on an internet community site, especially at work, which is when a lot of people access stackoverflow.

Old dudes work while they're at work, because they learned their work ethic in pre-internet times.

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