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> He stared writing the compiler being almost thirty years old. That means at the time when his programming abilities started to decline. Citation needed. Even
by avz 11y ago
> He stared writing the compiler being almost thirty years old. That means at the time when his programming abilities started to decline.
Citation needed. Even accepting the results of various studies that show age-correlated decline in some measures of programming ability, one cannot take those results and conclude that a specific programmer's ability began to decline at 30. Also, AFAIR the studies don't agree on a specific age and report increasing variance which makes it even less reasonable to make the conclusion the author made.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- to3m 11y agoMaybe he is talking about Stallman specifically.
- DonHopkins 11y agoWhatever his change in programming ability, I would guess that his change in typing ability from carpal tunnel problems overshadowed it. There's also the change in programming ability due to switching from Lisp to C. (And then having to dictate C code to a typist).
- throwaway999888 11y agoHaha, reading things like that quote is so depressing.
- anonbanker 11y agoStallman's carpal tunnel eventually became so bad, that he would dictate his code to students rather than endure the pain typing it himself. That was what they meant by his abilities declining.