10 ms·

Software - like anything worth mastering - requires many thousands of hours. The only reason I can think of that it would be harder to pick up at an older age i

Software - like anything worth mastering - requires many thousands of hours. The only reason I can think of that it would be harder to pick up at an older age is that often the hours are harder to come by due to family commitments and so forth. I went through an intense several year period of studying jazz music beginning around age 16. I remember the discipline it required and the speed at which I was able to progress. When I got into programming at age 33, it felt exactly the same. The discipline, the hours, the speed of progression; all very similar. Having devoted many thousands of hours to mastering a skill in my teenage years and again in my 30s, I'm not aware of any differences in capacity to improve at one age over the other. I attended a boot camp and had ~25 classmates all over the age spectrum. Some were smarter than others, some worked harder than others, but there was no age correlation on either of those observations. I also didn't see any age correlated patterns in success in the job market. Some old and young students got jobs immediately; some old and young students had to fight it out a little longer. If I lose my passion for software at age 40, 50 or 60, I would be very open to pursuing something new at any point in my life.

kemiller2002 10y ago
I think you're absolutely right with this. I've never seen age make a difference on someone's ability to learn programming. The only thing I think that young people possible have over older ones is the amount of available time. In general, people in their 30's, 40's, etc. have family commitments that someone in their 20's probably does not (not married, no kids etc.). This is probably what gives them a slight edge, but it has nothing to do with age per se. On the flip side, people who are older are generally more mature also, and realize that if they really want something they have to work for it. Honestly, now that I am almost 40, learning stuff (around programming, math, really anything) is so much easier than it was when I was in my 20's, because I understand the discipline that is required to do it. I'm more efficient at how I spend my time, and I see connections with what I already know making it easier to grasp concepts.
- aryamaan 10y ago
  What advice you would give to someone in their 20s who often find themselves at loss of motivation or drive.
  - fatalogic 10y ago
    You have to figure out your why. It also helps if you have something to remind you of your why every day like a picture or saying. Then it become a mantra. I started learning to program at 25. In my earlier years I wasn't very motivated but then I was faced with my mortality and that can be a pretty great motivator. You only live once so why not try to make the most out of every day.
  - cableshaft 10y ago
    You could try to think of it more as play (maybe 'intense play'). You're not 'learning how to program so I can get a well paying job', you're trying to get that image on the screen and want it to animate and move with keypresses because that would be neat if you could do that. Or make a simple webpage to show off your recent vacation that has a gallery widget that works exactly the way you envisioned that you made yourself, then show it to your friends and family and let them go "ooh, that's neat!". Or that one manual, boring process you have to do over and over again for...whatever, that takes so much time and bores you to tears. Why not try to figure out a way to write a small python or bash script to automate it? Keep doing little things that seem neat, and eventually you'll gain the confidence to tackle big things that seem neat, and eventually you'll be ready to tackle business needs that are a bit less fun but have a much greater effect on people. I didn't learn how to program by tackling business problems right away. I learned how to program by making tiny text-driven games just for me to play with, then later I got into web development by trying to make my own personal website, then I got into mobile development by trying to get a Flash game of mine onto my phone (in J2ME on the N-Gage! and later Objective-C on an iPhone), etc. Currenty I'm going through a book on Unity and making a guy move around a maze and shoot at boxes. When I program in my off time, I'm playing, not really learning. But as a happy side effect, I'm learning at the same time.
  - mafribe 10y ago
    Loss of motivation and drive is quite normal and happens to everybody from time to time. I'm inclined to think that success in life depends to a substantial part in how one manages productively to overcome (or at least manage) lack of motivation. I suggest to organise your life in a way that you have additional mechanisms to grind through those moments when you loose motivation. Here are some examples. I'm not saying they always work, or they are for everyone. I'm just throwing out some examples in order to communicate a general idea. - If you want to loose weight, remove food from your house, so you cannot simply snack to quell boredom. - If you want to learn subject XYZ, join a school/university/course/bootcamp teaching XYZ with a firm schedule, regular homework, exams that you can fail and other students - If you want to learn subject XYZ, teach it to others (in a generalised sense) in public. The fear of looking like an idiot in front of others is a good motivator. - Create social obligations with others for doing XYZ, so that the fear of violating those obligation, with the concomitant expected loss in social standing is additional motivation. - Control frivolous spending by engaging in a contract such a as a mortgage that forces you to save regularly, so as to avoid the substantial disadvantages of defaulting on a mortgage. - An extreme case is having children, for with children the well-being of what you value most in life now strongly depends on yourself being productive. What they all have in common is that your desired behaviour XYZ suddenly no longer only depends on your subjective and mercurial moods regarding XYZ, but are now tied together with other goals G1, G2, ... Gn of yours. The probability that you loose interest in all of XYZ, G1, G2, ... Gn at the same time is substantially lower than with just XYZ alone. In other words, make several of your life goals align and mutually reinforce each other.
brandall10 10y ago
Chad Fowler, author of The Passionate Programmer/former Living Social CTO, was a pro jazz musician who transitioned to programming. He drew quite a few parallels between the two fields regarding deliberate practice as a path to mastery.
- Lordarminius 10y ago
  > Chad Fowler, author of The Passionate Programmer/former Living Social CTO .... Also Co-author of the "Pickaxe Book" - a fantastic Ruby monograph.
DiffEq 10y ago
You are spot on with this; after learning a second language (Arabic) in my 20's and a third (Hebrew) in my 40's though I do find it "easier" in the sense that I know how to learn a hard language a little better than at the first. Same with programming. I learned Fortran in my teens and then Java in my late 30's and of course there is much more to Java than Fortran but the background helped me learn Java much faster than if I started cold. They key though is desire, time and focus - if you can not get those things you will not be able to learn anything that takes a long time to master.
dorfsmay 10y ago
10 k hours is 4 years working full time.
hkmurakami 10y ago
Luckily software is closer to being a skill based environment rather than a credential or seniority based one (though our hiring practices have at times been heavily credential based...)
holri 10y ago
At least with piano playing and probably playing other instruments, the assumption is that since your hands are still growing and developing when you are a kid, they are formable and practice has a better effect than when they are mature. Maybe the same holds for the brain?

kemiller2002 10y ago

I think you're absolutely right with this. I've never seen age make a difference on someone's ability to learn programming. The only thing I think that young people possible have over older ones is the amount of available time. In general, people in their 30's, 40's, etc. have family commitments that someone in their 20's probably does not (not married, no kids etc.). This is probably what gives them a slight edge, but it has nothing to do with age per se. On the flip side, people who are older are generally more mature also, and realize that if they really want something they have to work for it. Honestly, now that I am almost 40, learning stuff (around programming, math, really anything) is so much easier than it was when I was in my 20's, because I understand the discipline that is required to do it. I'm more efficient at how I spend my time, and I see connections with what I already know making it easier to grasp concepts.

aryamaan 10y ago
What advice you would give to someone in their 20s who often find themselves at loss of motivation or drive.
- fatalogic 10y ago
  You have to figure out your why. It also helps if you have something to remind you of your why every day like a picture or saying. Then it become a mantra. I started learning to program at 25. In my earlier years I wasn't very motivated but then I was faced with my mortality and that can be a pretty great motivator. You only live once so why not try to make the most out of every day.
- cableshaft 10y ago
  You could try to think of it more as play (maybe 'intense play'). You're not 'learning how to program so I can get a well paying job', you're trying to get that image on the screen and want it to animate and move with keypresses because that would be neat if you could do that. Or make a simple webpage to show off your recent vacation that has a gallery widget that works exactly the way you envisioned that you made yourself, then show it to your friends and family and let them go "ooh, that's neat!". Or that one manual, boring process you have to do over and over again for...whatever, that takes so much time and bores you to tears. Why not try to figure out a way to write a small python or bash script to automate it? Keep doing little things that seem neat, and eventually you'll gain the confidence to tackle big things that seem neat, and eventually you'll be ready to tackle business needs that are a bit less fun but have a much greater effect on people. I didn't learn how to program by tackling business problems right away. I learned how to program by making tiny text-driven games just for me to play with, then later I got into web development by trying to make my own personal website, then I got into mobile development by trying to get a Flash game of mine onto my phone (in J2ME on the N-Gage! and later Objective-C on an iPhone), etc. Currenty I'm going through a book on Unity and making a guy move around a maze and shoot at boxes. When I program in my off time, I'm playing, not really learning. But as a happy side effect, I'm learning at the same time.
- mafribe 10y ago
  Loss of motivation and drive is quite normal and happens to everybody from time to time. I'm inclined to think that success in life depends to a substantial part in how one manages productively to overcome (or at least manage) lack of motivation. I suggest to organise your life in a way that you have additional mechanisms to grind through those moments when you loose motivation. Here are some examples. I'm not saying they always work, or they are for everyone. I'm just throwing out some examples in order to communicate a general idea. - If you want to loose weight, remove food from your house, so you cannot simply snack to quell boredom. - If you want to learn subject XYZ, join a school/university/course/bootcamp teaching XYZ with a firm schedule, regular homework, exams that you can fail and other students - If you want to learn subject XYZ, teach it to others (in a generalised sense) in public. The fear of looking like an idiot in front of others is a good motivator. - Create social obligations with others for doing XYZ, so that the fear of violating those obligation, with the concomitant expected loss in social standing is additional motivation. - Control frivolous spending by engaging in a contract such a as a mortgage that forces you to save regularly, so as to avoid the substantial disadvantages of defaulting on a mortgage. - An extreme case is having children, for with children the well-being of what you value most in life now strongly depends on yourself being productive. What they all have in common is that your desired behaviour XYZ suddenly no longer only depends on your subjective and mercurial moods regarding XYZ, but are now tied together with other goals G1, G2, ... Gn of yours. The probability that you loose interest in all of XYZ, G1, G2, ... Gn at the same time is substantially lower than with just XYZ alone. In other words, make several of your life goals align and mutually reinforce each other.

brandall10 10y ago

Chad Fowler, author of The Passionate Programmer/former Living Social CTO, was a pro jazz musician who transitioned to programming. He drew quite a few parallels between the two fields regarding deliberate practice as a path to mastery.

Lordarminius 10y ago
> Chad Fowler, author of The Passionate Programmer/former Living Social CTO .... Also Co-author of the "Pickaxe Book" - a fantastic Ruby monograph.

DiffEq 10y ago

You are spot on with this; after learning a second language (Arabic) in my 20's and a third (Hebrew) in my 40's though I do find it "easier" in the sense that I know how to learn a hard language a little better than at the first. Same with programming. I learned Fortran in my teens and then Java in my late 30's and of course there is much more to Java than Fortran but the background helped me learn Java much faster than if I started cold. They key though is desire, time and focus - if you can not get those things you will not be able to learn anything that takes a long time to master.

dorfsmay 10y ago

10 k hours is 4 years working full time.

hkmurakami 10y ago

Luckily software is closer to being a skill based environment rather than a credential or seniority based one (though our hiring practices have at times been heavily credential based...)

holri 10y ago

At least with piano playing and probably playing other instruments, the assumption is that since your hands are still growing and developing when you are a kid, they are formable and practice has a better effect than when they are mature. Maybe the same holds for the brain?