6 ms·
Ask HN: To anyone who cares to read this. How old are you roughly?
I was just wondering whats the average age of people here, one of the few public forums where I think its mostly humans? If ur curious also maybe drop a quick comment.
- ggm 1y ago64
- Jean-Papoulos 1y agoLate 20s
- DamonHD 1y agolate 50s
- jgrahamc 1y agoThis would make a good poll.
- michelsedgh 1y agoMaybe share also?
- jethronethro 1y agoOld enough to know better but young enough not to care.
- yen223 1y ago30s
- throwaway798214 1y ago52, started coding when I was 12 but doing mostly sysop/admin things now
- michelsedgh 1y agoI forgot to say I'm 25 myself, started coding like 2 years ago maybe, that said, I'm not a coder. I vibe code only.
- chistev 1y agoHaha. What are fun things you've built so far?
- michelsedgh 1y agoCheck it out: https://testflight.apple.com/join/xGPuqqhS https://testflight.apple.com/join/xGPuqqhS I'd love feedback :)
- chistev 1y agoBummer, I don't use Apple.
- ColinWright 1y agoAbout to turn 64. Started coding on paper in the early 70s, on a home machine in 1978.
- romanobro56 1y ago20
- msgodel 1y agoEarly 30s
- drakonka 1y agoI am turning 37 soon.
- omgmajk 1y agoTurned 40 this year. Started coding as a teenager but didn't work with it until more recently.
- acureau 1y ago23, coming up on 24.
- owebmaster 1y ago37, coding since 12
- ok_coo 1y agoI’m 48, started as a web dev at age 30. I’ve been at a non-profit for quite awhile so not big tech and not big tech $ but I like my job and coworkers.
- JohnFen 1y agoOlder side of Gen X. Very likely old enough to be your father, somewhat likely old enough to be your grandfather.
- MasihMinawal 1y ago32
- swah 1y agoRoughly 40
- throwawayoldie 1y agoClose to 50. Been programming for fun since I was 6, for a living since I was 19. And now, thanks to LLMs, I'm thinking of leaving that behind and becoming the world's oldest apprentice electrician.
- marai2 1y agoHow does one go about finding an apprenticeship electrician position? Is that the regular path in this profession? Become an apprentice first?
- throwawayoldie 1y agoThat's the usual way yeah, you come in as an apprentice and work your way up. There are specialized job boards in addition to the usual general-purpose ones, which are often run by the government or a relevant union.
- runjake 1y agoIn my area, you can hook up with IBEW, the electrician's union and they'll essentially bootstrap you. There's some strings attached, but it's not too long of a commitment. YMMV.
- runjake 1y agoDo it (if you want to). You wouldn't literally be the oldest. My old IT manager retired in his 60s and did this (and is now a working, signing electrician). It even sounds like he kinda got some automatic seniority of sorts, due to his age and maturity. So yeah, it's doable. I semi-seriously consider going into the trades after retiring from tech.
- throwawayoldie 1y agoThanks for the encouragement. I'm definitely thinking about it: the money would be the biggest drawback, it'd mean living a lot more frugally, but back of the envelope math suggests I could live on it.
- Cerpicio 1y ago54
- mikewarot 1y ago61, got into computing just after toggle switches, punch cards and paper tape, thank goodness. I was, however ready to swear on a stack of Bibles in 1981 when I picked my major, that there was no money to be made in software. It looked like shareware was going to take over the world and drive the cost to almost zero. Moore's law was an awesome ride, and I think we've got at least a 100:1 improvement left in efficiency.
- David_R 1y ago80
- marcusverus 1y agoAlmost 40
- hanche 1y ago71. So far, the oldest to respond. Only a tiny minority of readers are likely to respond, though. And all you will learn from the responses is the age disribition of that tiny minority! Who knows how well that correlates with the totality of HN users?
- michelsedgh 1y agoYeah i was thinking that, but at least I have some idea that the age is different than I thought here, most responses are 40 and above apparently which I never would have guessed. I also would never have thought people in their 70's would be here !!!!
- rdegges 1y agoTurning 37 in two days. =D Been programming since I was 12. The passion has never left. <333
- LocalH 1y ago45
- shmel 1y ago34. I am programming since the age of 13. Still love it <3
- bradlys 1y agoI’m 34 and I’d say the 30s plus demo is what comments most here. I don’t know many peers who read HN regularly either even though I know a lot of engineers and founders in SV.
- clintmcmahon 1y ago44! Got into programming in my early teens. Landing my first dev job at 19. Still love it.
- harryquach 1y ago39
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- pbkompasz 1y ago64
- nik736 1y ago33, working on web projects since I was around 12 or 13.
- Fizzadar 1y agoMid 30s, started writing code 20 years ago, totally hooked since day one.
- msgodel 1y agoIt's an interesting coincidence both of us learned right around when ycombinator started.
- runjake 1y agoMid-50s
- DamnInteresting 1y agoI'm a few months shy of 48. I've been writing code since I learned to write BASIC games and utilities on my TI-82 in high school, ca. 1993. I still love coding, but it's getting harder and harder to make a living doing it.
- quaintdev 1y agoYou should have created a poll instead of a question. I know HN supports poll
- ethbr1 1y ago40s
- scoofy 1y ago40's
- mystified5016 1y agoWhy make it easy? When I was in middle school, we had WiFi at home before we got off dialup. I spent some days trying to figure out how to bridge the two before we got cable broadband. We also got our first cell phones as a family a year later, a couple of Sprint flip-phones with extendable antennas.
- _DeadFred_ 1y ago50s. When everyone else was getting Atari's I got a Commodore Vic20 and how to write software games book (My parents were both in software startups starting in the late 70s). Did software, burnt out, moved to IT management, ended up blowing my life up, now I'm completely f'd. 50/50 poor work/life balance combined with poor homelife, both feeding the other. It's interesting to have seen American life from the struggling 80s middle class that made genX latch key, to the top and now to the bottom.
- nyantaro1 1y ago28.
- rstuart4133 1y ago65
- marzetti 1y agoAge 77.. started with Fortran in '68 on an IBM1130, assembler on a Linc-8 in '70, then at UofWaterloo on IBM360/75 with (omg) 3MB ram. Then scientific programming mostly Fortran or asm, switched to turbo Pascal in 88-89, then Delphi and MATLAB. Currently mainly work in VsCode using markdown codeblocks in a way a bit like Jupyter (see VsCode extension Hover-Exec) for a range of stuff including art installations.
- michelsedgh 1y agoI didn't understand 70% of the stuff you said, but wow! One question, how did you update yourself and keep up throughout all these years?
- marzetti 1y agoThrough scientific collaboration mostly - HN now!