I’m 70 and almost all my experience is in procedural type languages. While I’ve done some C# and Java, I never really learned to think in them. I was talking with a similar aged colleague about 10 years ago about how he made the transition to OO languages. He said he had to work really hard at it and finally something clicked. I didn’t get there.
I think there is a selection bias here.
The proliferation of developer jobs has increased dramatically over the last 15 years, meaning people are choosing to study in this field more and therefore the workforce is likely to be filled with younger people.
35 will be 36 next year, and so on…
I started decades ago writing programs using punch cards…(a long, long time ago). I have been architecting systems, managing and training users ever since. Yes, I am too wise to work 16 hr days. There is more to life than eat, sleep, code.
I keep my developers honest when estimating jobs. I get them to explain why a job is 16 hrs or 16 weeks. It usually comes down to either not fully understanding requirements or making more work than necessary.
My clients loved me because I built exactly what they wanted. My task masters at big accounting firms didn’t (I have a CPA as well).
My first real project was building an airline reservation system, from scratch.
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Interesting. We just submitted an article to an academic journal on matters affecting people over 60. We were told we had to change any reference to “elderly” because it was not acceptable (read, politically correct). Now, I’m looking at the rapidly approaching age of 75. Does “elderly” bother me? Not in the least…I am elderly. I am getting tired of a bunch of “kids” telling me what offends me and what I have to be referred to as. To rant any further would be to turn this into a political statement, so I’d better stop right here.
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As a fellow Senior Citizen, an Elderly, and an Old, the only thing that bothers me is when these categorizations can be used to discriminate against me (note – I don’t mind what few Senior Discounts I can get). I would certainly be more suspicious if I were still working rather than being retired. I wouldn’t want to have to attend the Company Meeting for Elderly Employees, probably staged by HR.
I probably shouldn’t be nasty here. At my final employer before retiring I did get a retirement party. It was unofficial as the company officially didn’t mention the word “retirement” anywhere, and there were a number of employees working into their 70’s, just not me.
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Interesting article from 2013—apparently there is no consensus on the threshold for a person to be considered “elderly.”
From the article:
In Rhode Island public agencies, elderly officially begins at 60. In Hawaii, it arrives at 55. On a national note, the IRS Tax Counseling for the Elderly program offers free tax advice to anyone 60 or older.
I like to think of myself as being in “early late middle age.”