6 ms·

There's a persistent myth that needs to be put down: It doesn't get at all harder to learn new technologies when you get older. In fact, it gets a whole lot e

by nirvana 14y ago

There's a persistent myth that needs to be put down: It doesn't get at all harder to learn new technologies when you get older. In fact, it gets a whole lot easier. There's an old saying "You can't teach an old dog new tricks", and this is true, to the extent that any cliche can be, when referring to people becoming set in their ways. For many professions, where the technology doesn't' change, this is true. For programmers "set in your ways" simply describes the method by which we pick up new technology since that's what the profession is all about. (I prefer books to youtube videos, for instance.) Learning new languages and new technologies and new platforms is a whole lot easier now than it was 20 years ago, in part because the technology for delivering information is a lot more available (hell the internet alone is a huge impact) but also because, having learned a dozen languages the next language is a lot easier to pick up.

dalore 14y ago
It's also easier to learn new technologies and languages since so many share the same concepts. Also what's old is new again but just done in different mediums.
- angstrom 14y ago
  Reminds me of a place I worked where we joked the company's technology was 180 degrees out of phase with whatever was the hot new thing. Looking at the code base you could see how it oscillated between what was hot or great at the time.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
peterb 14y ago
I prefer "It is hard to teach a new dog old tricks". Much of today's cruft was originally written by new dogs.
GFischer 14y ago
I'm 31, and I have coworkers in their late 30s and early 40s, working in a large multinational with legacy systems. The truth is, while it doesn't get that much mentally harder to learn new technologies, it is very hard psychologically. For someone used to a large paycheck, to being the go-to guy in the technology and set in their 9-to-5 ways, to get out of their comfort zone, and admit that what they know is no longer relevant is scary as hell, especially for those with families. So, rather than update themselves and make up all that lost ground from getting too comfortable, they'll try to keep in place the old legacy systems only they can maintain. I got caught in that trap too, one of my main responsibilities is maintaining a Forte 4GL system ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forte_4GL http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forte_4GL ). While I've kept myself relatively up to date, it was on Microsoft .NET technology only, and I'm still a few years behind. I wanted to supplement my income, and took a look at the online marketplace, and it confirmed what Hacker News was already showing me: my skills are useless, I don't know Ruby, Javascript, the open source stacks, Amazon Web Services or anything currently relevant and in demand. I can either try to switch into management, or accept I'm obsolete and take a large pay cut (or try to improve myself on the side, probably by trying to do a startup) if I want to stay relevant.
- hkarthik 14y ago
  I was in a similar boat, and I decided to take the pay cut and spend a few years building my way back up. I'm much happier this way than I ever would have been in a managerial role that I never wanted.
  - GFischer 14y ago
    Thank you :) . However, I think I could be happy in a managerial role. As long as I'm solving problems, facing challenges and feeling relevant, I don't believe I need to be the one doing the coding :)
- jiggy2011 14y ago
  To be fair far more programmers today (even new ones) will be familiar with .Net than they will be with Ruby (and complex JS probably). I can see .Net sticking around for a while in one form or anther. Also AWS really isn't that complicated (at least from what I have used which is only really S3). Just think of it as another layer of abstraction around your Filesystem (FTP/Rsync with bells). You can figure S3 out in a few hours and I can't imagine EC2 being much more difficult if you're already familiar with Unix. I think the crux of the problem here though is that you take a risk whenever you devote any significant time to learning a specific technology as to whether it will still be relevant in a few years. This problem is made worse by the fact that often your employer will make that choice for you. Imagine being a young hire at your first coding job with ambitions of moving on to a career at Google after a couple of years to then be told that you are to be transferred to the COBOL/FORTRAN team where you will spend the next 2 years. I think this is probably part of the reason that many developers are so keen to re-implement perfectly working systems in new languages. They will try and sell their boss on the benefits of technology XYZ and how it will be good for the business when really in the back of their mind they are thinking "I desperately want out of this job and XYZ would look great on my CV".

by nirvana 14y ago

dalore 14y ago

It's also easier to learn new technologies and languages since so many share the same concepts. Also what's old is new again but just done in different mediums.

angstrom 14y ago
Reminds me of a place I worked where we joked the company's technology was 180 degrees out of phase with whatever was the hot new thing. Looking at the code base you could see how it oscillated between what was hot or great at the time.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

peterb 14y ago

I prefer "It is hard to teach a new dog old tricks". Much of today's cruft was originally written by new dogs.

GFischer 14y ago

I'm 31, and I have coworkers in their late 30s and early 40s, working in a large multinational with legacy systems. The truth is, while it doesn't get that much mentally harder to learn new technologies, it is very hard psychologically. For someone used to a large paycheck, to being the go-to guy in the technology and set in their 9-to-5 ways, to get out of their comfort zone, and admit that what they know is no longer relevant is scary as hell, especially for those with families. So, rather than update themselves and make up all that lost ground from getting too comfortable, they'll try to keep in place the old legacy systems only they can maintain. I got caught in that trap too, one of my main responsibilities is maintaining a Forte 4GL system ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forte_4GL http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forte_4GL ). While I've kept myself relatively up to date, it was on Microsoft .NET technology only, and I'm still a few years behind. I wanted to supplement my income, and took a look at the online marketplace, and it confirmed what Hacker News was already showing me: my skills are useless, I don't know Ruby, Javascript, the open source stacks, Amazon Web Services or anything currently relevant and in demand. I can either try to switch into management, or accept I'm obsolete and take a large pay cut (or try to improve myself on the side, probably by trying to do a startup) if I want to stay relevant.

hkarthik 14y ago
I was in a similar boat, and I decided to take the pay cut and spend a few years building my way back up. I'm much happier this way than I ever would have been in a managerial role that I never wanted.
- GFischer 14y ago
  Thank you :) . However, I think I could be happy in a managerial role. As long as I'm solving problems, facing challenges and feeling relevant, I don't believe I need to be the one doing the coding :)
jiggy2011 14y ago
To be fair far more programmers today (even new ones) will be familiar with .Net than they will be with Ruby (and complex JS probably). I can see .Net sticking around for a while in one form or anther. Also AWS really isn't that complicated (at least from what I have used which is only really S3). Just think of it as another layer of abstraction around your Filesystem (FTP/Rsync with bells). You can figure S3 out in a few hours and I can't imagine EC2 being much more difficult if you're already familiar with Unix. I think the crux of the problem here though is that you take a risk whenever you devote any significant time to learning a specific technology as to whether it will still be relevant in a few years. This problem is made worse by the fact that often your employer will make that choice for you. Imagine being a young hire at your first coding job with ambitions of moving on to a career at Google after a couple of years to then be told that you are to be transferred to the COBOL/FORTRAN team where you will spend the next 2 years. I think this is probably part of the reason that many developers are so keen to re-implement perfectly working systems in new languages. They will try and sell their boss on the benefits of technology XYZ and how it will be good for the business when really in the back of their mind they are thinking "I desperately want out of this job and XYZ would look great on my CV".