4 ms·

I think this bias needs to evolve, and maybe birth year is more descriptive than age. In 2000, a 40 year old was born in 1960, when the home PC was nearly 20 y

by herf 9y ago

I think this bias needs to evolve, and maybe birth year is more descriptive than age. In 2000, a 40 year old was born in 1960, when the home PC was nearly 20 years off. A programmer who is 40 today was born in 1977, and they could learn to program while they were in diapers. These are very different experiences, and the bar will move over time.

jnwatson 9y ago
Confirmed. I was born in 1977 and learned to program on a pocket TRS-80 at age 4 (no joke).
- busterarm 9y ago
  Born in 1984, learned to program on a C64. Also at age 4.
  - niyikiza 9y ago
    Worrying for most of us who saw the first computer at the age of 16, started coding at the age of 19, and still have to make it in the software engineering world.(26 y.o now).
    - vorotato 9y ago
      nah, 4 year olds are bad at learning.
weeksie 9y ago
Another 1977-er, but I didn't get to it until I got a second-hand C-64 in 1986.
StreamBright 9y ago
Yep, 79er here, LOAD "$",8 baby! :)
- bostik 9y ago
  Oh the memories... ?SYNTAX ERROR
matwood 9y ago
I was born in 1977 and had a computer that plugged into the TV. I remember copying basic programs out of a book, but do not remember my age at the time. I had no way to save the programs, so it was pretty stressful when the power would get shut off. I continued to tinker with computers/tech (my Nintendo was in multiple pieces, yet still worked :) ) off and on, but didn't get serious about programming until 1995 and have been doing it ever since. I'm sure some companies have an age bias, but I think it will be less and less as the generation who grew up with computers gets older.
bungie4 9y ago
I am your 1960 born example (my bday was yesterday!). I'm 57. I've been a professional programmer (read, I've been getting paid for it) for 30 years. I live in a small town in Northern Ontario. I'd like to be paid more, but I'm in the hunt on the payscale. My resume says I'm a full stack dev. You'd believe it if you saw it. That being said, if you've been in the occupation long enough, you figured out that its a continuous learning occupation. The thing is, the fundamentals I learned in the 80's and 90's still do me in good stead to this day. I don't write in assembler or even C anymore, but concepts they taught are still deeply ingrained. I've got another few years in me before I can retire, and when I do, I'll continue writing code for fun. Simply because I like it. (Oh ya, first computer was 3.5Kb (3583 bytes!) VIC 20. The first computer I ever SAW was a neighbours PET 4040 he brought home from school over the weekend. I bought the VIC-20 the next day.
- agentultra 9y ago
  Southern Ontario here. 36. Programming professionally for 14 years or so. Picked it up as a hobby when I was 9 or 10. The "fundamentals" predate you and I by quite a few decades. Alonzo Church, Turing, Gentzen, Liskov... their work really paved the way for us all. I suspect the lambda calculus will be as useful 30 years from now as it is today. As long as I'm working in a language with first-class functions as values I think I'll be okay. It's funny that many people still hold the belief that even mathematics is a young person's game. There are plenty of examples of mathematicians making significant contributions after the age of 30. For me I think the life of a programmer begins at thirty.
zerr 9y ago
> A programmer who is 40 today was born in 1977, and they could learn to program while they were in diapers. oh, those 1st world countries...
nomercy400 9y ago
This. Exactly this. In five years time it'll be the 40-45 range, and in ten years 45-50. There is a point in time to where computers and software development really started to take off, becoming ingrained in every person's life from the start.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > There is a point in time to where computers and software development really started to take off, becoming ingrained in every person's life from the start. Computers and software use, maybe; for software development it hasn't happened (it seemed to be heading that way in the mid-1980s, backed off starting around the beginning of the 1990s, and seems recently to have turned back around at least in terms of what lots of people are saying. We’ll see...)

by herf 9y ago

jnwatson 9y ago

Confirmed. I was born in 1977 and learned to program on a pocket TRS-80 at age 4 (no joke).

busterarm 9y ago
Born in 1984, learned to program on a C64. Also at age 4.
- niyikiza 9y ago
  Worrying for most of us who saw the first computer at the age of 16, started coding at the age of 19, and still have to make it in the software engineering world.(26 y.o now).
  - vorotato 9y ago
    nah, 4 year olds are bad at learning.

weeksie 9y ago

Another 1977-er, but I didn't get to it until I got a second-hand C-64 in 1986.

StreamBright 9y ago

Yep, 79er here, LOAD "$",8 baby! :)

bostik 9y ago
Oh the memories... ?SYNTAX ERROR

matwood 9y ago

I was born in 1977 and had a computer that plugged into the TV. I remember copying basic programs out of a book, but do not remember my age at the time. I had no way to save the programs, so it was pretty stressful when the power would get shut off. I continued to tinker with computers/tech (my Nintendo was in multiple pieces, yet still worked :) ) off and on, but didn't get serious about programming until 1995 and have been doing it ever since. I'm sure some companies have an age bias, but I think it will be less and less as the generation who grew up with computers gets older.

bungie4 9y ago

I am your 1960 born example (my bday was yesterday!). I'm 57. I've been a professional programmer (read, I've been getting paid for it) for 30 years. I live in a small town in Northern Ontario. I'd like to be paid more, but I'm in the hunt on the payscale. My resume says I'm a full stack dev. You'd believe it if you saw it. That being said, if you've been in the occupation long enough, you figured out that its a continuous learning occupation. The thing is, the fundamentals I learned in the 80's and 90's still do me in good stead to this day. I don't write in assembler or even C anymore, but concepts they taught are still deeply ingrained. I've got another few years in me before I can retire, and when I do, I'll continue writing code for fun. Simply because I like it. (Oh ya, first computer was 3.5Kb (3583 bytes!) VIC 20. The first computer I ever SAW was a neighbours PET 4040 he brought home from school over the weekend. I bought the VIC-20 the next day.

agentultra 9y ago
Southern Ontario here. 36. Programming professionally for 14 years or so. Picked it up as a hobby when I was 9 or 10. The "fundamentals" predate you and I by quite a few decades. Alonzo Church, Turing, Gentzen, Liskov... their work really paved the way for us all. I suspect the lambda calculus will be as useful 30 years from now as it is today. As long as I'm working in a language with first-class functions as values I think I'll be okay. It's funny that many people still hold the belief that even mathematics is a young person's game. There are plenty of examples of mathematicians making significant contributions after the age of 30. For me I think the life of a programmer begins at thirty.

zerr 9y ago

> A programmer who is 40 today was born in 1977, and they could learn to program while they were in diapers. oh, those 1st world countries...

nomercy400 9y ago

This. Exactly this. In five years time it'll be the 40-45 range, and in ten years 45-50. There is a point in time to where computers and software development really started to take off, becoming ingrained in every person's life from the start.

dragonwriter 9y ago
> There is a point in time to where computers and software development really started to take off, becoming ingrained in every person's life from the start. Computers and software use, maybe; for software development it hasn't happened (it seemed to be heading that way in the mid-1980s, backed off starting around the beginning of the 1990s, and seems recently to have turned back around at least in terms of what lots of people are saying. We’ll see...)