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And twenty years of doing CRUD in COBOL with no source control Just curious, are bringing up the 20 years of COBOL with no source control because that was your

And twenty years of doing CRUD in COBOL with no source control Just curious, are bringing up the 20 years of COBOL with no source control because that was your manager's background? Or is that your impression is of what the typical older tech worker has under their belt?

mikestew 11y ago
EDIT: apparently I didn't answer the question asked. Too deep to reply, so I blew away this one and rewrote it. I brought it up because "experience" in and of itself doesn't mean anything. 20 years of COBOL and practices from that era only means you were paid to do "work on a computer", and probably is not an indicator that you're going to walk into that Django/git/agile shop and set the world on fire. Just as some tire of the stereotype of the older tech worker, I tire of the assumption that "experience" automatically means someone has something to bring to the table. Bring me a resume of someone who has been doing primarily FoxPro for the last twenty years, and watch how fast I can dash to the shredder. Bring me another resume with experience writing apps in Turbo Pascal, and later moving to Delphi, with a brief stop in FoxPro during its heyday before moving on to .NET and mobile work, and watch how fast I type that email begging them to come in for an interview.
- kafkaesq 11y ago
  That still doesn't answer why you brought it up. EDIT: The above line was in response to an earlier version of the parent comment, which was, itself, subsequently edited into oblivion.
- kafkaesq 11y ago
  One of the things I do like about the older programmers I know -- making a fairly safe generalization here -- is the comparatively evolved early warning radar systems they have against the more insidious manifestations of kool-aid that have become amazingly popular in the industry in the past few years. "Agile" being one of the most common instances. And this idea that your startup is "setting the world on fire" being another.

mikestew 11y ago

EDIT: apparently I didn't answer the question asked. Too deep to reply, so I blew away this one and rewrote it. I brought it up because "experience" in and of itself doesn't mean anything. 20 years of COBOL and practices from that era only means you were paid to do "work on a computer", and probably is not an indicator that you're going to walk into that Django/git/agile shop and set the world on fire. Just as some tire of the stereotype of the older tech worker, I tire of the assumption that "experience" automatically means someone has something to bring to the table. Bring me a resume of someone who has been doing primarily FoxPro for the last twenty years, and watch how fast I can dash to the shredder. Bring me another resume with experience writing apps in Turbo Pascal, and later moving to Delphi, with a brief stop in FoxPro during its heyday before moving on to .NET and mobile work, and watch how fast I type that email begging them to come in for an interview.

kafkaesq 11y ago
That still doesn't answer why you brought it up. EDIT: The above line was in response to an earlier version of the parent comment, which was, itself, subsequently edited into oblivion.
kafkaesq 11y ago
One of the things I do like about the older programmers I know -- making a fairly safe generalization here -- is the comparatively evolved early warning radar systems they have against the more insidious manifestations of kool-aid that have become amazingly popular in the industry in the past few years. "Agile" being one of the most common instances. And this idea that your startup is "setting the world on fire" being another.