There are 5 of us in my group. Two of us are 51. One is mid-50s, two are mid- to late-40s (not sure exactly). We also have one contractor who is well past "retirement age". But we're doing SCADA, so that may skew differently than other specialties, and there's zero turnover. Thinking about programmers in other areas of the department (or contractors), it seems like most are in their late 20s to late 30s. I would think that a lot of programmers would have zero desire to take a management path, so would wind up programming until they retire. My title in the payroll system has the letters "mgr" in it, but there's nobody under me. That's the only way to get the pay grade. I hope that programming is a long term career, because I hope to be here for 20 more years. Broadening the scope, is anything a long term career? Don't engineers wind up as managers after they've proven themselves? Of course, engineering managers are still "Professional Engineers", and young engineers can't become PEs unless they work for managers who are PEs. Perhaps engineering management is still engineering, even if you never touch a drawing.

I know it must be a reaction to my comment about continuous forms, but I can't decipher "WHS". Seems like an acronym I might want to use... what is it?

Have to agree with the reply here. I was a bit surprised, actually, when I clicked the link and it opened an article about multi-tasking. For me, having multiple monitors helps me single-task. When I first came to work here, 16 years ago, they gave me two monitors, and it was a "luxury" that quickly started to feel like a necessity. I didn't have any sort of internet distraction at that time. Having a window for the code and another for the process that the code is running, especially when it requires interaction, is very valuable. It's also very useful to have data structures visible while you're working on a section of code, and yes, a web browser can be handy if you're looking at a code example relating to the code you have open on the other monitor. Before multiple monitors, I would have had a print-out of some of the data structures, and perhaps a book or two open. The monitors just replace the paper. (Although I still sometimes wish for continuous forms!)