Programming ability over age [modified]
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Yes a kindle is a better reading device (depending on where you want to read) than an iPad and an iPad is a better overall content consuming device. That's the trade off. I chose an iPad.
Rama Krishna Vavilala wrote:
Yes a kindle is a better reading device (depending on where you want to read) than an iPad and an iPad is a better overall content consuming device.
Totally agree.
The narrow specialist in the broad sense of the word is a complete idiot in the narrow sense of the word. Advertise here – minimum three posts per day are guaranteed.
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perhaps you should have read Christian's signature... :)
If I have accidentally said something witty, smart, or correct, it is purely by mistake and I apologize for it.
ragnaroknrol wrote:
perhaps you should have read Christian's signature...
We are not close enough for this.
The narrow specialist in the broad sense of the word is a complete idiot in the narrow sense of the word. Advertise here – minimum three posts per day are guaranteed.
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I'm only 35, so my opinion may be tainted but... From what have seen from my older peers, there's a few things that are holding them back. 1. They still think old computer thoughts. It's like they think how would I accomplish this in Cobol, then think if I did that in Cobol how would I convert it to .Net. This can produce some interesting results... 2. They tend to be a little less interested (maybe even less able) in learning the new technologies. Of course I've met and worked with people who are exception to that. I also think there is a bias to assume those things about older people, and then when you see evidence, it reinforces that believe, while that same evidence would be disregarded if they buy was in his 20's.
Jeremy Hutchinson wrote:
2. They tend to be a little less interested (maybe even less able) in learning the new technologies.
I just turned 40 not too long ago, and I can understand that. But it's not because I can't learn it, it's just that the so called "new technologies" are so incredibly dull. Plus there's little call for it where I work (there's no push for WPF or Silverlight for example). For example, I have absolutely zero interest in web "programming" in it's current state, which makes motivating myself to learn stuff like ASP.Net or Silverlight difficult.
¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire! SELECT * FROM User WHERE Clue > 0 0 rows returned Save an Orange - Use the VCF! Personal 3D projects Just Say No to Web 2 Point Blow
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I'm only 35, so my opinion may be tainted but... From what have seen from my older peers, there's a few things that are holding them back. 1. They still think old computer thoughts. It's like they think how would I accomplish this in Cobol, then think if I did that in Cobol how would I convert it to .Net. This can produce some interesting results... 2. They tend to be a little less interested (maybe even less able) in learning the new technologies. Of course I've met and worked with people who are exception to that. I also think there is a bias to assume those things about older people, and then when you see evidence, it reinforces that believe, while that same evidence would be disregarded if they buy was in his 20's.
Yes that is true and to some extent you see that here at CP too. To me it has more to do with personality. Was that programmer an active learner in his young days? Also interesting thing is how fast hecan learn? People establish leaning pattern and use that pattern to learn new things. A middle age guy may have actually developed a good pattern and pick up new technology really fast as I have seen in some cases. But I have seen the opposite too.
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Fades. Geez, I wish. In my case it up and disappears. :)
Chris Meech I am Canadian. [heard in a local bar] In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is. [Yogi Berra]
What disappears?
CQ de W5ALT
Walt Fair, Jr., P. E. Comport Computing Specializing in Technical Engineering Software
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Years back someone posted an article here (I can't find it now) which claimed that middle-aged programmers (40-68) are not expected to be as good as their non middle aged counter parts. Any link to original article will be appreciated? I did Google fir it but could not find that exact article. These days, I am reading this book: The Secret Life of the Grown-Up Brain: The Surprising Talents of the Middle-Aged Mind[^]. This was one of the popular books on Brain - a topic of my interest. The books cites several research studies citing that some faculties of brain actually improve in the middle age. One such thing is problem solving - which is what programming all about. Things such as ability to recognize and make sense complex patterns also improves - which again a common thing in programming. Another faculty that is expected to grow is the ability to comprehend the whole (system architecture). So what it should imply is that programming as a skill should improve with age. . Is that what happens in the real world? In my case at least, though I have yet to hit middle age, I can see that I have improved in lot of areas but I do not know whether it is due to accumulation of learning over the years or due to development of brain.
modified on Thursday, June 10, 2010 3:02 PM
Spotting complex patterns and problem solving have always been easy for me. That cost me quite a few friends as a child because they considered me a smart ass for being able to see what was obvious to me, and totally hidden to them. If anything, those skills have just grown over the years. What's diminished, though, is my ability to rapidly master all the new technologies, buzzwords, and especially libraries that are constantly changing. It might be a lot easier if we still had manuals with programming products, but now that nothing is properly documented it takes me forever to pick up the details. I expect that it would be easier if I did it every day, rather than a few hours a month, but it seems that it was much easier years ago to keep up with stuff. :sigh:
"A Journey of a Thousand Rest Stops Begins with a Single Movement"
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Spotting complex patterns and problem solving have always been easy for me. That cost me quite a few friends as a child because they considered me a smart ass for being able to see what was obvious to me, and totally hidden to them. If anything, those skills have just grown over the years. What's diminished, though, is my ability to rapidly master all the new technologies, buzzwords, and especially libraries that are constantly changing. It might be a lot easier if we still had manuals with programming products, but now that nothing is properly documented it takes me forever to pick up the details. I expect that it would be easier if I did it every day, rather than a few hours a month, but it seems that it was much easier years ago to keep up with stuff. :sigh:
"A Journey of a Thousand Rest Stops Begins with a Single Movement"
Roger Wright wrote:
That cost me quite a few friends as a child because they considered me a smart ass for being able to see what was obvious to me, and totally hidden to them.
Exactly! In my case, it didn't help that I was usually an a$$hole about it. :doh: I like to think that I'm much nicer now.
My other signature is witty and insightful.
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Years back someone posted an article here (I can't find it now) which claimed that middle-aged programmers (40-68) are not expected to be as good as their non middle aged counter parts. Any link to original article will be appreciated? I did Google fir it but could not find that exact article. These days, I am reading this book: The Secret Life of the Grown-Up Brain: The Surprising Talents of the Middle-Aged Mind[^]. This was one of the popular books on Brain - a topic of my interest. The books cites several research studies citing that some faculties of brain actually improve in the middle age. One such thing is problem solving - which is what programming all about. Things such as ability to recognize and make sense complex patterns also improves - which again a common thing in programming. Another faculty that is expected to grow is the ability to comprehend the whole (system architecture). So what it should imply is that programming as a skill should improve with age. . Is that what happens in the real world? In my case at least, though I have yet to hit middle age, I can see that I have improved in lot of areas but I do not know whether it is due to accumulation of learning over the years or due to development of brain.
modified on Thursday, June 10, 2010 3:02 PM
I'm still young, turning 37 on Tuesday. In my early to mid thirties, I seriously felt my mind slipping, started having trouble concentrating and felt just all around slower with mental tasks in general. It turned out I was getting out of shape even though I would go for long bike rides and was eating a "healthy" vegetarian diet. I've since changed the way I exercise, eat and make sure I get enough sleep; Now I'm more focused, have more energy and I'm clearer headed than I was in my twenties.
I can imagine the sinking feeling one would have after ordering my book, only to find a laughably ridiculous theory with demented logic once the book arrives - Mark McCutcheon
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I'm only 35, so my opinion may be tainted but... From what have seen from my older peers, there's a few things that are holding them back. 1. They still think old computer thoughts. It's like they think how would I accomplish this in Cobol, then think if I did that in Cobol how would I convert it to .Net. This can produce some interesting results... 2. They tend to be a little less interested (maybe even less able) in learning the new technologies. Of course I've met and worked with people who are exception to that. I also think there is a bias to assume those things about older people, and then when you see evidence, it reinforces that believe, while that same evidence would be disregarded if they buy was in his 20's.
Having reached 63 I have launched the process of learning the last programming language version I want or expect to want - Visual Studio VB 2010. While I have jumped into the pool to learn VB.Net, 2003, 2005, etc when crunch time came VB6 was the tool. My Reasons for slow to upgrade contain some of the comments already noted, but I repeat them anyway. 1. I think it was VB.Net almost a decade ago that had the wonderful Merry Go Round help files. Search for a term, find 7 references to other terms, but no real explanation of the one you wanted. Of course, go to the other 7 and all they do is point to the 6 you have not yet looked at and the one you just left. Guess I am just weak at running in circles. 2. Geekspeak - wow there must a team of thousands to meet and agree on all the new terms to use in explaining a new feature. Of course, the real problem, is there are dozens of these teams doing there own thing and the dictionary of geekspeak is just more geek speak. I also mostly fail to "learn" when asking a non-english speaking person to expline evrything from making coffee to construction of space shuttle. Not sure this is a function of age. 3. I am not writing code to sell, but to perform tasks within my environement. VB6 did (and still does) cover a whole lot of that ground. I guess I am not thinking Old Thougths but more likely had Old Problems to solve. Having retired, I am now trying to solve new problems, most of which do need new tech. 4. Desire to learn - I think you must have a desire and a need to learn the lastest version of anything. Last and most important 5. If I don't go to the trouble to learn there will always be a young horse who will pull the wagon for me.
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Years back someone posted an article here (I can't find it now) which claimed that middle-aged programmers (40-68) are not expected to be as good as their non middle aged counter parts. Any link to original article will be appreciated? I did Google fir it but could not find that exact article. These days, I am reading this book: The Secret Life of the Grown-Up Brain: The Surprising Talents of the Middle-Aged Mind[^]. This was one of the popular books on Brain - a topic of my interest. The books cites several research studies citing that some faculties of brain actually improve in the middle age. One such thing is problem solving - which is what programming all about. Things such as ability to recognize and make sense complex patterns also improves - which again a common thing in programming. Another faculty that is expected to grow is the ability to comprehend the whole (system architecture). So what it should imply is that programming as a skill should improve with age. . Is that what happens in the real world? In my case at least, though I have yet to hit middle age, I can see that I have improved in lot of areas but I do not know whether it is due to accumulation of learning over the years or due to development of brain.
modified on Thursday, June 10, 2010 3:02 PM
I beleive when you age, you get better at things you're used to. Since someone older, might have much more experience on problem solving, it will pick better on new problems as experience made him good at it. However, I think older brains might have some trouble on learning completely new stuff. Take learning a new language for example. Kids are usually much better at it than adults. However, if you try to teach a new language to someone who already speaks 5 of them, it will surely pick the sixth language very quickly. I think it all comes down to "experience".
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Years back someone posted an article here (I can't find it now) which claimed that middle-aged programmers (40-68) are not expected to be as good as their non middle aged counter parts. Any link to original article will be appreciated? I did Google fir it but could not find that exact article. These days, I am reading this book: The Secret Life of the Grown-Up Brain: The Surprising Talents of the Middle-Aged Mind[^]. This was one of the popular books on Brain - a topic of my interest. The books cites several research studies citing that some faculties of brain actually improve in the middle age. One such thing is problem solving - which is what programming all about. Things such as ability to recognize and make sense complex patterns also improves - which again a common thing in programming. Another faculty that is expected to grow is the ability to comprehend the whole (system architecture). So what it should imply is that programming as a skill should improve with age. . Is that what happens in the real world? In my case at least, though I have yet to hit middle age, I can see that I have improved in lot of areas but I do not know whether it is due to accumulation of learning over the years or due to development of brain.
modified on Thursday, June 10, 2010 3:02 PM
I can't speak to the concept of "brain development" but I can speak to the issue of middle-age. I've been a developer for 33+ years. I'm now 52. I find that I can learn as quickly or even more quickly than I could when I was younger. The difference now, though, is now I'm more able to "pick my battles" than I was then. Rather than trying to ingest every piece of information into my OWN cranium, I've developed the ability to RESEARCH what's needed. Also, at this age, I work "smart" instead of "hard". The younger "kids" can throw all kinds of technical jargon and seem to know "everything" about all the hot new technology but I find that I can often get things done five times faster than they can with far less code and my solutions sometimes run an order of magnitude faster because of lower overhead. BTW ... that wasn't me talking - I've been told this by several employers. Us "old" guys can be pretty awfully effective with our "old school" way of doing things - as long as we aren't closed-minded to the new technology. We simply need to develop the ability to pick and choose what works rather than trying to know it all. There's no way you can know it all in any field, let alone this one. -Max :)
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Fades. Geez, I wish. In my case it up and disappears. :)
Chris Meech I am Canadian. [heard in a local bar] In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is. [Yogi Berra]
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When you get to forty you will need a big signs “To The Bathroom=>” in your apartment. :-D
The narrow specialist in the broad sense of the word is a complete idiot in the narrow sense of the word. Advertise here – minimum three posts per day are guaranteed.
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Makes one wonder what humans could achieve if our brains developed over millennia rather than decades.
The book of Genesis (The Bible) says that people used to live for hundreds of years. The oldest guy to ever live was over 900 years old (Methuselah was his name). God decided that this was not good because man became increasingly smart over time and could do just about anything he wanted. Because of this he decided to shorten our life cycle to only 100 years. Check it out, it's interesting reading!
-------------------------------------------- Give me ambiguity or give me something else!
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Years back someone posted an article here (I can't find it now) which claimed that middle-aged programmers (40-68) are not expected to be as good as their non middle aged counter parts. Any link to original article will be appreciated? I did Google fir it but could not find that exact article. These days, I am reading this book: The Secret Life of the Grown-Up Brain: The Surprising Talents of the Middle-Aged Mind[^]. This was one of the popular books on Brain - a topic of my interest. The books cites several research studies citing that some faculties of brain actually improve in the middle age. One such thing is problem solving - which is what programming all about. Things such as ability to recognize and make sense complex patterns also improves - which again a common thing in programming. Another faculty that is expected to grow is the ability to comprehend the whole (system architecture). So what it should imply is that programming as a skill should improve with age. . Is that what happens in the real world? In my case at least, though I have yet to hit middle age, I can see that I have improved in lot of areas but I do not know whether it is due to accumulation of learning over the years or due to development of brain.
modified on Thursday, June 10, 2010 3:02 PM
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Chris Meech wrote:
The real problem is that when I get to work in the morning, I can't remember what the heck I was working on yesterday.
Yes, the book talks about that too. The ability to remember things fades (which is obvious).
Rama Krishna Vavilala wrote:
The ability to remember things fades (which is obvious).
But one learns effective note-taking over time. For me, I'm a better programmer than any of my younger colleagues, mainly due to all the code I've seen and written. That's not to say I'm better in every way. As usual, there are people with more programming talent around me.
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Years back someone posted an article here (I can't find it now) which claimed that middle-aged programmers (40-68) are not expected to be as good as their non middle aged counter parts. Any link to original article will be appreciated? I did Google fir it but could not find that exact article. These days, I am reading this book: The Secret Life of the Grown-Up Brain: The Surprising Talents of the Middle-Aged Mind[^]. This was one of the popular books on Brain - a topic of my interest. The books cites several research studies citing that some faculties of brain actually improve in the middle age. One such thing is problem solving - which is what programming all about. Things such as ability to recognize and make sense complex patterns also improves - which again a common thing in programming. Another faculty that is expected to grow is the ability to comprehend the whole (system architecture). So what it should imply is that programming as a skill should improve with age. . Is that what happens in the real world? In my case at least, though I have yet to hit middle age, I can see that I have improved in lot of areas but I do not know whether it is due to accumulation of learning over the years or due to development of brain.
modified on Thursday, June 10, 2010 3:02 PM
It's been scientifically proven that the more you stretch your brain the better you become at learning and the sharper your mind becomes regardless of age. Even if it's simple things, just as long it's not the same routine. Routine KILLS the brain. Always trying different things, keeping things new and fresh. Age is not a major factor in this.
-------------------------------------------- Give me ambiguity or give me something else!
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Years back someone posted an article here (I can't find it now) which claimed that middle-aged programmers (40-68) are not expected to be as good as their non middle aged counter parts. Any link to original article will be appreciated? I did Google fir it but could not find that exact article. These days, I am reading this book: The Secret Life of the Grown-Up Brain: The Surprising Talents of the Middle-Aged Mind[^]. This was one of the popular books on Brain - a topic of my interest. The books cites several research studies citing that some faculties of brain actually improve in the middle age. One such thing is problem solving - which is what programming all about. Things such as ability to recognize and make sense complex patterns also improves - which again a common thing in programming. Another faculty that is expected to grow is the ability to comprehend the whole (system architecture). So what it should imply is that programming as a skill should improve with age. . Is that what happens in the real world? In my case at least, though I have yet to hit middle age, I can see that I have improved in lot of areas but I do not know whether it is due to accumulation of learning over the years or due to development of brain.
modified on Thursday, June 10, 2010 3:02 PM
I'm in that old person category. I think some of the "as good as" depends on one's interest and ability to learn new things. I know younger people still hugging old C syntax, whereas I've been figuring out Java and C# on my own time. This old dog wants to remain employable. I also have known younger people without the experience of how to tackle a problem, or how to prevent a problem, whereas I've seen plenty over the years...
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Years back someone posted an article here (I can't find it now) which claimed that middle-aged programmers (40-68) are not expected to be as good as their non middle aged counter parts. Any link to original article will be appreciated? I did Google fir it but could not find that exact article. These days, I am reading this book: The Secret Life of the Grown-Up Brain: The Surprising Talents of the Middle-Aged Mind[^]. This was one of the popular books on Brain - a topic of my interest. The books cites several research studies citing that some faculties of brain actually improve in the middle age. One such thing is problem solving - which is what programming all about. Things such as ability to recognize and make sense complex patterns also improves - which again a common thing in programming. Another faculty that is expected to grow is the ability to comprehend the whole (system architecture). So what it should imply is that programming as a skill should improve with age. . Is that what happens in the real world? In my case at least, though I have yet to hit middle age, I can see that I have improved in lot of areas but I do not know whether it is due to accumulation of learning over the years or due to development of brain.
modified on Thursday, June 10, 2010 3:02 PM
Instead of discussing the problem, everybody discuss ipad and kindle? When I was about 50 (long ago), I could not get a job in one of fields I used to work before, so I had to change my field - and became a programmer. I'm still in middle-age and can see my programming skills improve with age(or with learning new technologies, with more experience - who can distinguish?), but I don't feel my ability to generate ideas is that good as before - it is difficult to say if this because of age, occupation, work environment or other circumstances. Routine skills in design, development and coding are necessary for software projects, but cannot ensure much progress in technology without sharp new ideas, so idea generation is the most important criteria of brain quality. My best ideas appeared when I was 20-35.
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Years back someone posted an article here (I can't find it now) which claimed that middle-aged programmers (40-68) are not expected to be as good as their non middle aged counter parts. Any link to original article will be appreciated? I did Google fir it but could not find that exact article. These days, I am reading this book: The Secret Life of the Grown-Up Brain: The Surprising Talents of the Middle-Aged Mind[^]. This was one of the popular books on Brain - a topic of my interest. The books cites several research studies citing that some faculties of brain actually improve in the middle age. One such thing is problem solving - which is what programming all about. Things such as ability to recognize and make sense complex patterns also improves - which again a common thing in programming. Another faculty that is expected to grow is the ability to comprehend the whole (system architecture). So what it should imply is that programming as a skill should improve with age. . Is that what happens in the real world? In my case at least, though I have yet to hit middle age, I can see that I have improved in lot of areas but I do not know whether it is due to accumulation of learning over the years or due to development of brain.
modified on Thursday, June 10, 2010 3:02 PM
I was reading something several weeks back that implied, with age, most people make more correct decisions (probably due to experience) than younger people with the same skill sets.