30 years old and apparently on the verge of obsolescence, or so WIRED! would have you believe. Didn't WIRED! also say that Push technology was going to kill the web?
Anyway, I've seen some older programmers get hustled out the door at previous jobs, but I don't believe it had anything to do with their age; it had everything to do with their attitude. These individuals seemed to have developed the opinion that the methods and tools that they had been using for the past five, ten, or twenty years were just fine, and that there was no reason for them to expand their skills ("This GUI stuff is a phase," one actually said to me. Two months later, he was gone.)
This is not to say that older programmers are not valuable. To the contrary, there are times when I'd give my left foot for a mentor/team leader who had a grasp of today's tools/methods combined with the wisdom and insight that veteran experience brings. That current knowledge is vital; today's developers (myself included) are not very likely to respect a manager who doesn't have a clue about what we do or how we do it.
I try to keep as current as I can on the technologies that I work with. In addition, whenever an opportunity to learn something new presents itself, I leap on it. I was recently asked if I'd like to serve as a backup administrator for my company's email servers. It's not something I'd want as a career, but why turn down the chance to add another skill to the ol' resume'? If anything, it helps to foster the perception that I'm willing to keep learning.
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30 years old and apparently on the verge of obsolescence, or so WIRED! would have you believe. Didn't WIRED! also say that Push technology was going to kill the web?
Anyway, I've seen some older programmers get hustled out the door at previous jobs, but I don't believe it had anything to do with their age; it had everything to do with their attitude. These individuals seemed to have developed the opinion that the methods and tools that they had been using for the past five, ten, or twenty years were just fine, and that there was no reason for them to expand their skills ("This GUI stuff is a phase," one actually said to me. Two months later, he was gone.)
This is not to say that older programmers are not valuable. To the contrary, there are times when I'd give my left foot for a mentor/team leader who had a grasp of today's tools/methods combined with the wisdom and insight that veteran experience brings. That current knowledge is vital; today's developers (myself included) are not very likely to respect a manager who doesn't have a clue about what we do or how we do it.
I try to keep as current as I can on the technologies that I work with. In addition, whenever an opportunity to learn something new presents itself, I leap on it. I was recently asked if I'd like to serve as a backup administrator for my company's email servers. It's not something I'd want as a career, but why turn down the chance to add another skill to the ol' resume'? If anything, it helps to foster the perception that I'm willing to keep learning.