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What's the Shelf Life of a Programmer?

Posted by samzenpus on from the ending-the-game dept.

Esther Schindler writes "Why is it that young developers imagine that older programmers can't program in a modern environment? Too many of us of a 'certain age' are facing an IT work environment that is hostile to older workers. Lately, Steven Vaughan-Nichols has been been noticing that the old meme about how grandpa can't understand iPhones, Linux, or the cloud is showing up more often even as it's becoming increasingly irrelevant. The truth is: Many older developers are every bit as good as young programmers, and he cites plenty of example of still-relevant geeks to prove it. And he writes, 'Sadly, while that should have put an end to the idea that long hours are a fact of IT life, this remnant of our factory-line past lingers both in high tech and in other industries. But what really matters is who's productive and who's not.'"

13 of 388 comments (clear)

  1. Young people thinking they know everything? by Eightbitgnosis · · Score: 5, Funny

    And they find older people around them to be outdated and archaic?!

    This has never happened before

    1. Re:Young people thinking they know everything? by interval1066 · · Score: 4, Funny

      Speak for your self. And get the hell off of my lawn.

      --
      Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
    2. Re:Young people thinking they know everything? by Seumas · · Score: 5, Funny

      Exactly. It's just like all these old guys in their 30s and 40s or even 50s who learned C and C++ and are currently unemployed, because nobody uses C and/or C++ anymore and these old geezers didn't bother learning CoffeeScript, Clojure, Haskell, GO, and HTML5 which has ubiquitously replaced C/C++ all across the industry.

      It was a nice ride for those fat-cat geezers, for the five or ten years that C/C++ was used in the industry. It's just such a shame everyone has moved on and everything in the industry runs on Ruby and Chrome OS, now. Gosh.

  2. Re:5 Years by mooingyak · · Score: 4, Funny

    Five.

    Even frozen, no more than a year. Eat them before then, certainly before 5 years go by. Otherwise you might get sick.

    --
    William of Ockham had no beard. The most likely explanation is that it was chewed off by squirrels every morning.
  3. Re:Depends by jslarve · · Score: 5, Funny

    Depends on the programmer!

    Bah. Continence has nothing to do with being a good programmer.

  4. It depends... by Lumpy · · Score: 5, Funny

    Have you kept them out of the sun and filled them with preservatives such as redbull?

    Shelf life is far longer that way.

    --
    Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
  5. Re:At the ripe old age of 38... by seepho · · Score: 2, Funny

    Does your UART traffic go uphill both ways?

  6. Old programmers are like old wine by Chemisor · · Score: 4, Funny

    Jesus told them this parable: âoeNo one tears a patch from a new garment and sews it on an old one. If he does, he will have torn the new garment, and the patch from the new will not match the old. And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins, the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, new wine must be poured into new wineskins. And no one after drinking old wine wants the new, for he says, âThe old is better.â(TM)â - Luke 5:36-39

    Old programmers are like old wine; we have no shelf life. As we age, we get better. We also get more expensive. If you pour us into the new wineskin of long hours, low pay, and other kinds of abuse, we burst your bubble and leak out. Put us in the old wineskins, preserve us with reasonable working hours, pay us well, and we'll reward you with the best patches you have ever seen. Keep away the patches coming from new wine, or you'll tear your garment and your hair. After trying us, you'll too say "truly, the old is better", and then continue "however, our shareholders demand higher profits this quarter and prefer 'cheaper'".

  7. Re:What is the shell life of a dentist ? by camperdave · · Score: 3, Funny

    Do you know what is the shell life of a dentist ?

    Same as a programmer: 3-5 days unless watered. 3-5 weeks unless fed.

    --
    When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
  8. Re:Depends by snspdaarf · · Score: 5, Funny

    Aha! So that's why management is full of shit!

    --
    Why, without your clothes, you're naked, Miss Dudley!
  9. Re:What is there to dispute? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    You had text files? I had to patch sectors on the disk!

  10. Re:What is there to dispute? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    YOU HAD LOWERCASE?

  11. Re:If I Only Had a Brain by smellotron · · Score: 4, Funny

    Eh, I have seen it in brogrammer environments.

    Honestly, that's so insulting to the profession. Can't we just call them "assholes" or "douchebags" like every other profession?