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When I was 19 I thought I was the greatest programmer in the world and that everyone was ignoring my ability because of my age. When I turned 21, left uni and

When I was 19 I thought I was the greatest programmer in the world and that everyone was ignoring my ability because of my age. When I turned 21, left uni and got my first software dev job I realised how much I had to learn. I'm now in my late 20's and one of the most important things I have learnt in the last 10 years is that I still have a huge amount more to learn. Your graph shows that 47% of under 18's think people are ageist against them. Of course they do. Young people are often unaware of the value that experience brings. I'm not saying all are - there are some great young developers. I know several who at 14/15 are several times better than I ever expect to be, and you clearly have talents and ability. (I try to keep in touch with them so that when they reach a point when they are looking for work I can interview them. I think there is huge value in young new talent) What I would be really interested to read is a follow up to this article in 15 years when you have the experience of age and can write from both sides of the fence. Keep your notes from this article and compare it with how you feel when you are 35 looking back at cocky teenage coders who think they know everything.

kiba 16y ago
When I was 19 I thought I was the greatest programmer in the world and that everyone was ignoring my ability because of my age. I am still 19. I already realize that I am not such a hotshot. I never felt discriminated against for my age. I guess people have difference experience.
araneae 16y ago
Whether you think it's a deserved prejudice or not, doesn't mean it doesn't exist or it isn't problematic. Sure, the vast majority of young people can't program. The vast majority of women can't either. Age AND sex are perfectly useful heuristics for determining whether any given person is a good programmer. The problem with prejudice is it sucks for those people who are young or female who actually are good. Personally, I look much younger than I am (usually 3-5 years, but as much as 8 in one case) and it means I'm rarely taken seriously. I can imagine it being frustrating actually being young, as well.
- rmc 16y ago
  The vast majority of men can't programme either.
- ohyes 16y ago
  It isn't a useful heuristic at all. The vast majority of people can't program. If you take a random person from the population I'm going to assume that they cannot program. If we are talking about 'from the population of programmers' I'd wager (a large sum) there are more men who claim they can program, but actually cannot, just given the fact that the field of programming is a male dominated industry.
- SimonPStevens 16y ago
  Oh totally, I'm not advocating prejudice based on age or any other demographic factor. I'm suggesting is that the author needs to somehow distinguish between prejudice because of age, and failures because of actually not being good. My experience is that most people (of all ages) think they are better than they actually are. Some then go on to blame their failure to achieve a goal on some external factor (in this case ageism). I'm just suggesting that the graph showing that 47% of under 18's think they have been a subject of ageism is fairly irrelevant. Wait until those 18 year olds are 35, then ask them if they were subject to ageism at 18, I bet their story changes.
RyanMcGreal 16y ago
>Young people are often unaware of the value that experience brings. Demographic Dunning-Kruger effect.
jdp23 16y ago
saying "you're too young to have a valid opinion on this, come back when you're older" is a good example of ageist attitudes its popularity here shows how endemic ageism is even on HN of course designers and programmers in their teens have a lot to learn. so do designers and programmers in their 20s ... 30s ... 40s ... 50s ... that doesn't invalidate their opinions. EDIT: and people downvoting this post is another example of ageist attitudes here :-)
- SimonPStevens 16y ago
  I'm not saying the author is too young to have an opinion. I'm saying the 47% of under 18's in the graph can't all be superstars who are just subject to ageist attitudes. Some of them are just unaware of how much they have to learn I'm saying that some (note: some not all) young people don't understand the value of experience (myself included in that when I was young), and that I would be interested in the viewpoint of a older person who at 18 had felt they were subject to ageism, and if after 10+ years of experience they still hold that viewpoint, or if it has changed with time - Interested from an experimental point of view, not because I don't value their opinion now. (BTW, It's not me doing the down voting)
  - jdp23 16y ago
    believe me, as somebody in my 40s hanging out here on HN, i totally agree that plenty of young people don't fully understand the value of experience :-) but at the same time i think that it's easy to focus too much on experience -- i learn just as much, maybe more, from much younger people than from people my age or older. and it's not just superstars who are subject to ageist attitudes. sure, some of the 47% may be misinterpreting valid issues as ageism -- but the same's likely to be true at any of the other age brackets in the chart, so it seems to me it's still mighty powerful evidence that it's a particularly acute problem at younger ages. agreed though that it would be interesting from an experimental point of view. my experience is that as people grow older, they realize that yes, there was some feedback they should have listened to -- but they also are able to see more clearly the different forms of discrimination they've suffered from in the past. (i didn't mean to imply it was you doing the downvoting, sorry if it came off that way)
Locke1689 16y ago
This is tricky because you're also making a false comparison. Specifically, you're comparing between "you" and "older you." I would agree that in almost every conceivable case that "older you" is more competent and resourceful than younger you. The problem is that the comparison isn't necessarily between "you" and "older you"; instead it could be between "younger you" and some other set of programmers. There are a decent amount of good, young programmers and a really large amount of bad programmers. Also, generic "experience" is a false dichotomy. For example, if we were both given the problem "write a hardware accelerated virtual machine monitor kernel" I would probably run rings around you. Why? Because I have experience in that subdomain. If we were given a problem that focused more on your subdomain the situation would be reversed. Experience isn't black and white and there are some situations, like kernel development, where I'd probably be as good a choice as someone who never learned C but is a great Java developer. In other words, strictly age is a false comparison and making such naive comparisons is practically guaranteed to land you with someone unsuited for a specific problem.
- SimonPStevens 16y ago
  Ok, ignore the increase in my ability from then to now. When I was young I compared myself to every other programmer and thought I was in the top 5%. Now I compare myself to every other programmer and think I'm average. I also look back and realise that when I was 18 I was probably in the bottom 5% of programmers worldwide. I agree there is no such thing as generic experience, but within the same domain experience does make a difference. Everything else being equal, an 18yo kernel programmer will have less kernel programming experience than a 35yo kernel programmer. Now I'm not saying this automatically makes the 35yo the best choice or the better programmer, but it certainly does add some value.
  - Locke1689 16y ago
    This doesn't make sense though. Are you really suggesting that younger programmers believe they're in the ranks of the top programmers in their subdomain? I compare myself with programmers around the same age and experience level as me, not with domain experts. That seems like such a ludicrously obvious point to make.

kiba 16y ago

When I was 19 I thought I was the greatest programmer in the world and that everyone was ignoring my ability because of my age. I am still 19. I already realize that I am not such a hotshot. I never felt discriminated against for my age. I guess people have difference experience.

araneae 16y ago

Whether you think it's a deserved prejudice or not, doesn't mean it doesn't exist or it isn't problematic. Sure, the vast majority of young people can't program. The vast majority of women can't either. Age AND sex are perfectly useful heuristics for determining whether any given person is a good programmer. The problem with prejudice is it sucks for those people who are young or female who actually are good. Personally, I look much younger than I am (usually 3-5 years, but as much as 8 in one case) and it means I'm rarely taken seriously. I can imagine it being frustrating actually being young, as well.

rmc 16y ago
The vast majority of men can't programme either.
ohyes 16y ago
It isn't a useful heuristic at all. The vast majority of people can't program. If you take a random person from the population I'm going to assume that they cannot program. If we are talking about 'from the population of programmers' I'd wager (a large sum) there are more men who claim they can program, but actually cannot, just given the fact that the field of programming is a male dominated industry.
SimonPStevens 16y ago
Oh totally, I'm not advocating prejudice based on age or any other demographic factor. I'm suggesting is that the author needs to somehow distinguish between prejudice because of age, and failures because of actually not being good. My experience is that most people (of all ages) think they are better than they actually are. Some then go on to blame their failure to achieve a goal on some external factor (in this case ageism). I'm just suggesting that the graph showing that 47% of under 18's think they have been a subject of ageism is fairly irrelevant. Wait until those 18 year olds are 35, then ask them if they were subject to ageism at 18, I bet their story changes.

RyanMcGreal 16y ago

>Young people are often unaware of the value that experience brings. Demographic Dunning-Kruger effect.

jdp23 16y ago

saying "you're too young to have a valid opinion on this, come back when you're older" is a good example of ageist attitudes its popularity here shows how endemic ageism is even on HN of course designers and programmers in their teens have a lot to learn. so do designers and programmers in their 20s ... 30s ... 40s ... 50s ... that doesn't invalidate their opinions. EDIT: and people downvoting this post is another example of ageist attitudes here :-)

SimonPStevens 16y ago
I'm not saying the author is too young to have an opinion. I'm saying the 47% of under 18's in the graph can't all be superstars who are just subject to ageist attitudes. Some of them are just unaware of how much they have to learn I'm saying that some (note: some not all) young people don't understand the value of experience (myself included in that when I was young), and that I would be interested in the viewpoint of a older person who at 18 had felt they were subject to ageism, and if after 10+ years of experience they still hold that viewpoint, or if it has changed with time - Interested from an experimental point of view, not because I don't value their opinion now. (BTW, It's not me doing the down voting)
- jdp23 16y ago
  believe me, as somebody in my 40s hanging out here on HN, i totally agree that plenty of young people don't fully understand the value of experience :-) but at the same time i think that it's easy to focus too much on experience -- i learn just as much, maybe more, from much younger people than from people my age or older. and it's not just superstars who are subject to ageist attitudes. sure, some of the 47% may be misinterpreting valid issues as ageism -- but the same's likely to be true at any of the other age brackets in the chart, so it seems to me it's still mighty powerful evidence that it's a particularly acute problem at younger ages. agreed though that it would be interesting from an experimental point of view. my experience is that as people grow older, they realize that yes, there was some feedback they should have listened to -- but they also are able to see more clearly the different forms of discrimination they've suffered from in the past. (i didn't mean to imply it was you doing the downvoting, sorry if it came off that way)

Locke1689 16y ago

This is tricky because you're also making a false comparison. Specifically, you're comparing between "you" and "older you." I would agree that in almost every conceivable case that "older you" is more competent and resourceful than younger you. The problem is that the comparison isn't necessarily between "you" and "older you"; instead it could be between "younger you" and some other set of programmers. There are a decent amount of good, young programmers and a really large amount of bad programmers. Also, generic "experience" is a false dichotomy. For example, if we were both given the problem "write a hardware accelerated virtual machine monitor kernel" I would probably run rings around you. Why? Because I have experience in that subdomain. If we were given a problem that focused more on your subdomain the situation would be reversed. Experience isn't black and white and there are some situations, like kernel development, where I'd probably be as good a choice as someone who never learned C but is a great Java developer. In other words, strictly age is a false comparison and making such naive comparisons is practically guaranteed to land you with someone unsuited for a specific problem.

SimonPStevens 16y ago
Ok, ignore the increase in my ability from then to now. When I was young I compared myself to every other programmer and thought I was in the top 5%. Now I compare myself to every other programmer and think I'm average. I also look back and realise that when I was 18 I was probably in the bottom 5% of programmers worldwide. I agree there is no such thing as generic experience, but within the same domain experience does make a difference. Everything else being equal, an 18yo kernel programmer will have less kernel programming experience than a 35yo kernel programmer. Now I'm not saying this automatically makes the 35yo the best choice or the better programmer, but it certainly does add some value.
- Locke1689 16y ago
  This doesn't make sense though. Are you really suggesting that younger programmers believe they're in the ranks of the top programmers in their subdomain? I compare myself with programmers around the same age and experience level as me, not with domain experts. That seems like such a ludicrously obvious point to make.