I started programming at 8. I gave up on it at 16. Picked it up again in my mid 20's. Responsibilities are an issue, (and this is especially an issue for wom

I started programming at 8. I gave up on it at 16. Picked it up again in my mid 20's. Responsibilities are an issue, (and this is especially an issue for women, who, if they want to have a family can't wait as long as men can), but it isn't the only one. One thing that I think is pretty clear is that as we age, our thought processes change. This is something we don't like to talk bout because because it brings up spectres like age discrimination, but it is true. The thing is, this isn't a neutral tradeoff. While purely abstract manipulation of data may be easier in one's twenties, solving real-world problems is much easier at the age of 40, not only because we understand the problems we are solving better but also because we understand problem solving better, and tend to be better at it. Can someone with a liberal arts degree pick up coding on her spare time and make real, significant contributions to the world by so doing? Absolutely. Will she be interchangeable with someone who has been coding since age of 6? Probably not. But interchangeability is overrated and the ability to find our own problems to solve is not.