5 ms·

I like how the opening point is ageism. Really classy.

eckyptang 14y ago
I don't think it's ageism. It's a good observation. Unfortunately, as you progress up the ladder in the industry, you're more likely to be attending conferences in a management capacity. I know this as I'm right there now. The younger people here are doing, not attending conferences.
- jschuur 14y ago
  Newsflash: Younger people get older too and still enjoy coding for fun and profits. And many of them are just like younger people, trapped in aging bodies. Just because you're not seeing younger people at agile related events, doesn't mean they're not using agile methods where they are 'doing' stuff.
  - jrajav 14y ago
    >> Just because you're not seeing younger people at agile related events, doesn't mean they're not using agile methods where they are 'doing' stuff. I second this. If you're using conference attendance as a measure of the effectiveness of agile methods, you may have missed a point somewhere.
- jperkelens 14y ago
  "..the smell of death" isn't ageism??? I happen to agree that any good conference's should represent a cross-section of that industry. But the fact is that software development in particular tends to discard older professionals as not valuable.
- deleted 14y ago
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asinglenet 14y ago
Author here - I can make an observation about old people because I myself am 49 years old. I'm not making a value judgement about older people. That would be ageism. I'm observing that the attendees "agile" events tend to be older than most programmers, and even most IT staff. That's just demographics. Why is that? That affects a lot of things.
- robbowley 14y ago
  My hunch is one of the main reasons people who attend Agile events tend to be on the mature side is because they've have families so they can't (and don't want to) spend their weekends at beer-fuelled hackathons and have seen that the root of software project success & failure is in the processes rather than the tools. That kind of stuff is pretty boring for the younger generations who are still caught up in the idea that shiny technologies and gargantuan coding sessions can save the world and make them all billionares.
- raganwald 14y ago
  I can make an observation about old people because I myself am 49 years old That doesn't make any logical sense. All that suggests is that you have n=1 experience with people over the age of forty. As for observing that agile events in your neck of the woods are full of older people, there are many, many possible explanations for this and your blog post advances one without providing evidence that it is anything other than confirmation bias. One thing I would do before making a statement like that is attend some other methodology events and check out the ages. If you go to a CMM conference, how old are the people? How about a PMP Institute gathering? You may find that older people are more interested in methodologies while younger people are more interested in technologies. You might not, but your essay does nothing to establish that your explanation carries more weight than my conjecture. And if my conjecture is correct, your point really should be that "Excessive interest in methodologies has the smell of death." That might be true! I am not saying you're wrong, only that your essay is not persuasive on this one point.
  - asinglenet 14y ago
    I don't make a conjecture about the reason that agile events skew to an older crowd because I really, really don't know why it is true. I do know that it changes the whole perception of the effort. So, I have to be careful when I use the word "agile". It's got a demographic implication that isn't positive, isn't "us" for many younger people. You can argue about the wisdom of my saying it this way, but the word has a real demographic and emotional association. This article is a chance to express my doubts about the word "agile". It's done. I'll be more positive from here on out. CMM and PMP are basically anti-agile. They are useful, but useful for projects that just shouldn't be agile. The fact that agile events attract a similar demographic isn't a positive, in my opinion.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]

I don't think it's ageism. It's a good observation. Unfortunately, as you progress up the ladder in the industry, you're more likely to be attending conferences in a management capacity. I know this as I'm right there now. The younger people here are doing, not attending conferences.

jschuur 14y ago
Newsflash: Younger people get older too and still enjoy coding for fun and profits. And many of them are just like younger people, trapped in aging bodies. Just because you're not seeing younger people at agile related events, doesn't mean they're not using agile methods where they are 'doing' stuff.
- jrajav 14y ago
  >> Just because you're not seeing younger people at agile related events, doesn't mean they're not using agile methods where they are 'doing' stuff. I second this. If you're using conference attendance as a measure of the effectiveness of agile methods, you may have missed a point somewhere.
jperkelens 14y ago
"..the smell of death" isn't ageism??? I happen to agree that any good conference's should represent a cross-section of that industry. But the fact is that software development in particular tends to discard older professionals as not valuable.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]

asinglenet 14y ago

Author here - I can make an observation about old people because I myself am 49 years old. I'm not making a value judgement about older people. That would be ageism. I'm observing that the attendees "agile" events tend to be older than most programmers, and even most IT staff. That's just demographics. Why is that? That affects a lot of things.

robbowley 14y ago
My hunch is one of the main reasons people who attend Agile events tend to be on the mature side is because they've have families so they can't (and don't want to) spend their weekends at beer-fuelled hackathons and have seen that the root of software project success & failure is in the processes rather than the tools. That kind of stuff is pretty boring for the younger generations who are still caught up in the idea that shiny technologies and gargantuan coding sessions can save the world and make them all billionares.
raganwald 14y ago
I can make an observation about old people because I myself am 49 years old That doesn't make any logical sense. All that suggests is that you have n=1 experience with people over the age of forty. As for observing that agile events in your neck of the woods are full of older people, there are many, many possible explanations for this and your blog post advances one without providing evidence that it is anything other than confirmation bias. One thing I would do before making a statement like that is attend some other methodology events and check out the ages. If you go to a CMM conference, how old are the people? How about a PMP Institute gathering? You may find that older people are more interested in methodologies while younger people are more interested in technologies. You might not, but your essay does nothing to establish that your explanation carries more weight than my conjecture. And if my conjecture is correct, your point really should be that "Excessive interest in methodologies has the smell of death." That might be true! I am not saying you're wrong, only that your essay is not persuasive on this one point.
- asinglenet 14y ago
  I don't make a conjecture about the reason that agile events skew to an older crowd because I really, really don't know why it is true. I do know that it changes the whole perception of the effort. So, I have to be careful when I use the word "agile". It's got a demographic implication that isn't positive, isn't "us" for many younger people. You can argue about the wisdom of my saying it this way, but the word has a real demographic and emotional association. This article is a chance to express my doubts about the word "agile". It's done. I'll be more positive from here on out. CMM and PMP are basically anti-agile. They are useful, but useful for projects that just shouldn't be agile. The fact that agile events attract a similar demographic isn't a positive, in my opinion.

deleted 14y ago

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