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As an older person in tech I see ageism alive and well in tech. The young ones don't understand why we oldies roll our eyes at hearing the 13th iteration of "th

As an older person in tech I see ageism alive and well in tech. The young ones don't understand why we oldies roll our eyes at hearing the 13th iteration of "this is ground breaking new idea" or when we gently interrupt a personnel or strategy discussion with a few use cases from the past to illustrate the pending shit-storm being proposed. Time for the world realise this tech stuff and programming has been around about 100 years! Let that settle in. A century of code. So the tech population is now clever and curious 8 year olds all the way through to 80+ curious and seasoned Algol programmers. And we ALL have value. #endofrant

deleted 2y ago
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eric-hu 2y ago
How have you kept the ageism from scaring you off or just turning you off to go to another industry?
archgoon 2y ago
What were they coding on in 1924?
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- rm_-rf_slash 2y ago
  Tabulating machines were developed by IBM’s predecessor for the 1890 census and used in various forms until evolving into punchcard computers.
  - archgoon 2y ago
    The Jacquard Loom predates that by over 80 years. I'm sure we can stretch the definition further and go back even farther.
- jessekv 2y ago
  Things were a bit more collaborative back in the day. https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/edu/news/2016/10/31/when-computers-were-human/ https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/edu/news/2016/10/31/when-computers-...
- RichardCA 2y ago
  The engineering knowledge that went into the WWII fire control computers was clearly a form of programming. You will also notice the words "computer", "input", and "output" are used without needing to be explained. https://youtu.be/s1i-dnAH9Y4 https://youtu.be/s1i-dnAH9Y4
- louthy 2y ago
  Ada Lovelace was coding in 1843.
kentbrokeman 2y ago
[dead]
fauigerzigerk 2y ago
Sure, ageism is bad. I'm in my 50s too and I've seen my share of hype cycles. But I think there is a danger of overreacting to the unbridled enthusiasm of younger people. Every new cyle comes with ideas that are similar to what we have seen before. Sometimes I find myself thinking, OK, been there, done that, doesn't work. But I suspect that there is a sort of experience bias that lets me see the similarities far more clearly than what's new and different. In every cycle people claim that it's nothing new and yet, with hindsight, we often find that small differences were important enough to change the world unpredictable ways. I think it has value for older folks to contribute arguments and perspectives, but let's not be too self-righteous about it. Similar ideas can lead to very different outcomes in a different context.
- steveBK123 2y ago
  One problem with ageism and youth bias in the industry is that we are still heavily populated with devs more interested in hopping on the latest framework they heard about at a conference than in actually solving users problems. The amount of "how do I justify a rewrite because our tech stack is bad" posts you see in your typical reddit/etc programmer forum would remind you of this.
  - alephnerd 2y ago
    > devs more interested in hopping on the latest framework they heard about at a conference than in actually solving users problems. The amount of "how do I justify a rewrite because our tech stack is bad" posts you see in your typical reddit/etc programmer forum would remind you of this. These are old complaints. My dad worked in the tech industry since the pre-Mosaic days, and even then you'd hear the same arguments and complaints. The same way people complain about React today is the same way people complained about Spring, and then about how old school C programmers complained about C++ with it "training wheels", and BASIC programmers complaining about "OOP", and old school networking types complaining about built-in TCP/IP instead of spinning up your own stack. Technologies and frameworks change. That's how tech always works. Sure I can demolish a building with a sledgehammer, but why not adopt dynamite or bulldozers if it efficiently solves the problem. At some point, all these complaints are just Ludditism from techies who didn't upskill and/or are unable to communicate.
hcks 2y ago
> The young ones don't understand why we oldies roll our eyes at hearing the 13th iteration of "this is ground breaking new idea" Why not constructively contribute by explaining what could be different for the idea to work this time? Or if you hate innovation (i.e. retrying age old ideas slightly differently - hoping this time it will work), why don't you pick another industry?

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

eric-hu 2y ago

How have you kept the ageism from scaring you off or just turning you off to go to another industry?

archgoon 2y ago

What were they coding on in 1924?

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
rm_-rf_slash 2y ago
Tabulating machines were developed by IBM’s predecessor for the 1890 census and used in various forms until evolving into punchcard computers.
- archgoon 2y ago
  The Jacquard Loom predates that by over 80 years. I'm sure we can stretch the definition further and go back even farther.
jessekv 2y ago
Things were a bit more collaborative back in the day. https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/edu/news/2016/10/31/when-computers-were-human/ https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/edu/news/2016/10/31/when-computers-...
RichardCA 2y ago
The engineering knowledge that went into the WWII fire control computers was clearly a form of programming. You will also notice the words "computer", "input", and "output" are used without needing to be explained. https://youtu.be/s1i-dnAH9Y4 https://youtu.be/s1i-dnAH9Y4
louthy 2y ago
Ada Lovelace was coding in 1843.

kentbrokeman 2y ago

[dead]

fauigerzigerk 2y ago

Sure, ageism is bad. I'm in my 50s too and I've seen my share of hype cycles. But I think there is a danger of overreacting to the unbridled enthusiasm of younger people. Every new cyle comes with ideas that are similar to what we have seen before. Sometimes I find myself thinking, OK, been there, done that, doesn't work. But I suspect that there is a sort of experience bias that lets me see the similarities far more clearly than what's new and different. In every cycle people claim that it's nothing new and yet, with hindsight, we often find that small differences were important enough to change the world unpredictable ways. I think it has value for older folks to contribute arguments and perspectives, but let's not be too self-righteous about it. Similar ideas can lead to very different outcomes in a different context.

steveBK123 2y ago
One problem with ageism and youth bias in the industry is that we are still heavily populated with devs more interested in hopping on the latest framework they heard about at a conference than in actually solving users problems. The amount of "how do I justify a rewrite because our tech stack is bad" posts you see in your typical reddit/etc programmer forum would remind you of this.
- alephnerd 2y ago
  > devs more interested in hopping on the latest framework they heard about at a conference than in actually solving users problems. The amount of "how do I justify a rewrite because our tech stack is bad" posts you see in your typical reddit/etc programmer forum would remind you of this. These are old complaints. My dad worked in the tech industry since the pre-Mosaic days, and even then you'd hear the same arguments and complaints. The same way people complain about React today is the same way people complained about Spring, and then about how old school C programmers complained about C++ with it "training wheels", and BASIC programmers complaining about "OOP", and old school networking types complaining about built-in TCP/IP instead of spinning up your own stack. Technologies and frameworks change. That's how tech always works. Sure I can demolish a building with a sledgehammer, but why not adopt dynamite or bulldozers if it efficiently solves the problem. At some point, all these complaints are just Ludditism from techies who didn't upskill and/or are unable to communicate.

hcks 2y ago

> The young ones don't understand why we oldies roll our eyes at hearing the 13th iteration of "this is ground breaking new idea" Why not constructively contribute by explaining what could be different for the idea to work this time? Or if you hate innovation (i.e. retrying age old ideas slightly differently - hoping this time it will work), why don't you pick another industry?