4 ms·

I think there's an elephant in the room, at least for many of us who are over 40: We are in some ways less intelligent than we were 10 years earlier. We somet

I think there's an elephant in the room, at least for many of us who are over 40: We are in some ways less intelligent than we were 10 years earlier. We sometimes process complex problems a little more slowly, the maximum complexity of our mental models is a little lower, and we can sometimes learn more slowly. We pray that our greater experience and wisdom compensate for that. For some of us it does, for others not so much. Perhaps many hiring companies do reject us 40+ workers for the wrong reasons. But in some cases, perhaps their reasons are illegal but correct.

vikingcaffiene 10y ago
I'm about to turn 40 and at the top of my game. Unless some magic spell hits me when my next birthday comes, I'm not real worried about this elephant you speak of. It's about staying on top of your skills and never assuming you know enough. Always be learning. Most older devs that I know that started sliding into irrelevance did so because they didn't keep up on that.
- DoofusOfDeath 10y ago
  I think you raise a great point. Perhaps I'm conflating some issues that should really be separate. It would be interesting to see a breakdown of why older devs get less awesome over time. I can imagine a variety of causes: - Slower learning due to reduced brain plasticity. - Early stages of dementia. - More poorly rested due to kids, age-related physical discomfort during sleeping, or obesity-based sleep apnea. - Reduced focus on career development due to getting comfortable and/or responsibilities outside of work (child-rearing, etc.) This includes less time on evenings / weekends to self-learn new technologies. - Reduced exposure to new technologies, because they're now so expensive that employers only want to pay them to work in their current niche(s) of expertise. - False perception that they actually are less awesome. E.g., they write half as much code as before, because of a better idea about what's a waste of time.
alistairSH 10y ago
Citation?
noir_lord 10y ago
I'm 37, I've been programming since I was 7. I get more done in a day than I did in two days at 27 and a week or two at 17. I'm no smarter or dumber than I was at 27 or 17 but I have a much more intuitive grasp of what will and won't work and I don't paint myself into corners with elaborate what-if's, I solve solutions in the simplest way that will work with some head room if I need to change it later, I religiously document my code as it goes to production because I know if history is any guide the idiot refactoring it in 6 months will be me and I've learnt that good code that works for a year and can be done in a day beats perfect code that will work for two years when both will be changed in 6 months when the current requirements go out the window. As for the maximum complexity of mental model thing I'm not sure that is true either but it's hard to say I don't write code in a way that I'm constantly butting the limit of what the maximum complexity I can put into my head is anymore. Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it. - Brian Kernighan
jfoutz 10y ago
Not sure about the maximum complexity point. I like to think i'm thinking about things with very crisp abstractions, so i avoid some pointless complexity i used to deal with. Processing complex models though? No. Now i actually process them. I know the 50 things that could be horrible when facing a new environment, and i go look for them. My old strategy was to hope i'd be smart enough to deal with whatever i ran into. This is still the case, but i figure it out now, rather than 2 weeks or months down the road. I don't meet a lot of old arrogant programmers, the kind with false bravado. It's not bragging if you can do it. I think that's a losing strategy. I try to be humble, and save the bravado for just after shipping. And do that in a very inclusive way. We did it, not I did it. Condescension is another one i struggled with a bit. That's a long term losing strategy imho. Much better to ask gentle questions about, what happens when the network is unavailable, or what if thread A has the lock when thread B comes rolling in? I guess, as a younger programmer, i had quite a few ugly personality traits because i was young and dumb. Those are tolerable when you're cheap. Those are tolerable when you're junior. One other key, i think, is not presenting things like look at what I did, or look at what I'm going to do. Rather, share the magic. We (our organization) got to build this super neat thing that i'm exited about, and you should share in the excitement because it's super cool. Bring people along for the ride, let them share in the joy we all experience building cool stuff. It's easy to slip, and think I did the whole thing single handedly - bosses make time for me to work on something to the exclusion of everything else, my peers cover bugs and other projects so i can do my stuff. Everyone helped create an environment for me, so i could build cool stuff. My peers likely don't care much at all, but enthusiasm is infectious. They're often happy for me, and inadvertently happy in general because they see progress. A lot of people fall into the trap of, this place would fall apart without me and i should be worshiped. No. It's really unlikely the place will fall apart. It might suck for a few weeks or months, but ultimately they'll figure out your stuff or replace it, and you'll be forgotten.
nether 10y ago
Then again at universities, isn't it generally the older profs and not the fresh postdocs doing the most novel work?
Tagore 10y ago
At 45 I might not be as quick, in some respects, as I was twenty years ago, but I know a lot more now. A _lot_ more. That's enough to make me far more valuable, even if I've lost a step here and there.
chadcmulligan 10y ago
> We are in some ways less intelligent than we were 10 years earlier. We sometimes process complex problems a little more slowly, the maximum complexity of our mental models is a little lower, and I believe this is dated, latest research indicates different types of intelligence as we age - https://qz.com/857430/researchers-have-identified-the-types-of-intelligence-that-make-aging-workers-valuable/ https://qz.com/857430/researchers-have-identified-the-types-...

vikingcaffiene 10y ago

I'm about to turn 40 and at the top of my game. Unless some magic spell hits me when my next birthday comes, I'm not real worried about this elephant you speak of. It's about staying on top of your skills and never assuming you know enough. Always be learning. Most older devs that I know that started sliding into irrelevance did so because they didn't keep up on that.

DoofusOfDeath 10y ago
I think you raise a great point. Perhaps I'm conflating some issues that should really be separate. It would be interesting to see a breakdown of why older devs get less awesome over time. I can imagine a variety of causes: - Slower learning due to reduced brain plasticity. - Early stages of dementia. - More poorly rested due to kids, age-related physical discomfort during sleeping, or obesity-based sleep apnea. - Reduced focus on career development due to getting comfortable and/or responsibilities outside of work (child-rearing, etc.) This includes less time on evenings / weekends to self-learn new technologies. - Reduced exposure to new technologies, because they're now so expensive that employers only want to pay them to work in their current niche(s) of expertise. - False perception that they actually are less awesome. E.g., they write half as much code as before, because of a better idea about what's a waste of time.

alistairSH 10y ago

Citation?

noir_lord 10y ago

I'm 37, I've been programming since I was 7. I get more done in a day than I did in two days at 27 and a week or two at 17. I'm no smarter or dumber than I was at 27 or 17 but I have a much more intuitive grasp of what will and won't work and I don't paint myself into corners with elaborate what-if's, I solve solutions in the simplest way that will work with some head room if I need to change it later, I religiously document my code as it goes to production because I know if history is any guide the idiot refactoring it in 6 months will be me and I've learnt that good code that works for a year and can be done in a day beats perfect code that will work for two years when both will be changed in 6 months when the current requirements go out the window. As for the maximum complexity of mental model thing I'm not sure that is true either but it's hard to say I don't write code in a way that I'm constantly butting the limit of what the maximum complexity I can put into my head is anymore. Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it. - Brian Kernighan

jfoutz 10y ago

Not sure about the maximum complexity point. I like to think i'm thinking about things with very crisp abstractions, so i avoid some pointless complexity i used to deal with. Processing complex models though? No. Now i actually process them. I know the 50 things that could be horrible when facing a new environment, and i go look for them. My old strategy was to hope i'd be smart enough to deal with whatever i ran into. This is still the case, but i figure it out now, rather than 2 weeks or months down the road. I don't meet a lot of old arrogant programmers, the kind with false bravado. It's not bragging if you can do it. I think that's a losing strategy. I try to be humble, and save the bravado for just after shipping. And do that in a very inclusive way. We did it, not I did it. Condescension is another one i struggled with a bit. That's a long term losing strategy imho. Much better to ask gentle questions about, what happens when the network is unavailable, or what if thread A has the lock when thread B comes rolling in? I guess, as a younger programmer, i had quite a few ugly personality traits because i was young and dumb. Those are tolerable when you're cheap. Those are tolerable when you're junior. One other key, i think, is not presenting things like look at what I did, or look at what I'm going to do. Rather, share the magic. We (our organization) got to build this super neat thing that i'm exited about, and you should share in the excitement because it's super cool. Bring people along for the ride, let them share in the joy we all experience building cool stuff. It's easy to slip, and think I did the whole thing single handedly - bosses make time for me to work on something to the exclusion of everything else, my peers cover bugs and other projects so i can do my stuff. Everyone helped create an environment for me, so i could build cool stuff. My peers likely don't care much at all, but enthusiasm is infectious. They're often happy for me, and inadvertently happy in general because they see progress. A lot of people fall into the trap of, this place would fall apart without me and i should be worshiped. No. It's really unlikely the place will fall apart. It might suck for a few weeks or months, but ultimately they'll figure out your stuff or replace it, and you'll be forgotten.

nether 10y ago

Then again at universities, isn't it generally the older profs and not the fresh postdocs doing the most novel work?

Tagore 10y ago

At 45 I might not be as quick, in some respects, as I was twenty years ago, but I know a lot more now. A _lot_ more. That's enough to make me far more valuable, even if I've lost a step here and there.

chadcmulligan 10y ago

> We are in some ways less intelligent than we were 10 years earlier. We sometimes process complex problems a little more slowly, the maximum complexity of our mental models is a little lower, and I believe this is dated, latest research indicates different types of intelligence as we age - https://qz.com/857430/researchers-have-identified-the-types-of-intelligence-that-make-aging-workers-valuable/ https://qz.com/857430/researchers-have-identified-the-types-...