Can Older Software Developers Still Learn New Tricks?

An anonymous reader writes "There's a persistent bias against older programmers in the software development industry, but do the claims against older developers' hold up? A new paper looks at reputation on StackOverflow, and finds that reputation grows as developers get older. Older developers know about a wider variety of technologies. All ages seem to be equally knowledgeable about most recent programming technologies. Two exceptions: older developers have the edge when it comes to iOS and Windows Phone."

Comments

Re:One of two things.

[TapeCutter]

Yes, but grandma is not, nor has she ever been a developer. As I posted elsewhere my 80yo dad learnt python recently "for fun", hes a retired mechanical engineer, not a developer. I'm an old developer, the next thing I have to learn is NSIS. Like new cars, young developers don't have any rust, they have not lived long enough to have experienced re-learning things they knew in great detail 10-20-30yrs ago, Once you get to my Dad's age, "keeping ones marbles" is something to be thankful for. I also consider myself to be fortunate to work for a large Japanese firm, age and experience are given due respect and the company returns a consistent profit.