My random assortment of thoughts (subject to revision): Myths are just that. Some, but not much basis in reality. My experience based suspicion is that skills

My random assortment of thoughts (subject to revision): Myths are just that. Some, but not much basis in reality. My experience based suspicion is that skills are weakly correlated with age, but more dependent on total focused-hrs spent. A key realization for me was that the benefits of 'deeply focused hours spent' are not linear. While older programmers have more chance of achieving level X skills, the highly focused and motivated 16 year old can do great work. Greatness is a function of getting to the edge and pushing it. Age is becoming less relevant, meaning that great work can be done regardless of age (I hope!).