{"id":211,"date":"2010-02-26T17:18:17","date_gmt":"2010-02-27T01:18:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/35.225.155.113\/blog\/index.php\/2010\/02\/26\/old_programmers_dont_die_they_just_fade_away\/"},"modified":"2019-10-13T13:02:47","modified_gmt":"2019-10-13T20:02:47","slug":"old-programmers-dont-die-they-just-fade-away","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.weinstein.org\/blog\/index.php\/2010\/02\/old-programmers-dont-die-they-just-fade-away.html","title":{"rendered":"Old Programmers Don’t Die, They Just Fade Away"},"content":{"rendered":"

A few days ago I came across this
\nInfoworld<\/a> article entitled “The painful truth about age
\ndiscrimination in tech<\/a>” via Slashdot<\/a> and have been wanting to
\ncomment on it ever since. While I have had no reason to cry foul
\non any company I’ve ever interviewed for, I have to say most of the
\nissues certainly ring true to me.<\/p>\n

One of the frustrations I feel a
\nlot of tech works have is how to communicate experience. Way too
\noften I fell I’ve talked to recruiters or HR personnel who are either
\nlooking for an exact word-for-word match between the resume and the job
\nopening or, on the opposite end of the spectrum, are looking for just
\none keyword to hit.<\/p>\n

Alas, it seems all too true that “hiring
\nmanagers are unable to map how 10 years of experience in one
\nprogramming language can inform or enhance a programmer’s months of
\nexperience with a newer technology.”<\/p>\n

Which of course doesn’t help when, in
\nthe world of technology, the field is evolving at such a rapid pace,
\nwith a huge focus on “The Next Big Thing”.<\/p>\n

True, writing CGI
\nscripts<\/a> in Perl<\/a> yesterday doesn’t automatically translate to writing
\ncustom modules in Joomla<\/a>. But there is a road that gets a developer
\nfrom first writing a CGI script in Perl to learning Object-Orientated<\/a>
\nprogramming to understanding design patterns such as
\nModel-View-Controller<\/a> that does provide one with the basis for working with Joomla.<\/p>\n

Luckily this is an issue that can be
\ntaken care of with a little education.<\/p>\n

More troubling for an experienced
\ndeveloper is that “only 19 percent of computer science graduates
\nare still working in programming once they’re in their early 40s.”<\/p>\n

Granted the source of that statistic is
\na government study that’s at least a decade old. But still, the high
\nturn-over I’ve experienced working in the tech industry – my
\naverage is about 2 years at any given company – I can see many
\nindividuals would take the break as motivation to look for something “better”. Heck,
\nI’ve even felt it myself, having gone back to school for a Masters in
\nBusiness Administration at one point.<\/p>\n

Invariably when talking about business,
\na sports analogy tends to make an entrance. Sure enough, Inforworld’s
\narticle compares the IT industry to that of professional sports, “at
\nsome point in those career arcs, the assets that made workers such
\nhot properties — youth, the ability to devote lots of time to their
\nvocation, comparative inexperience — diminish. And the marginal
\nutility of what’s left — experience — is not as strongly valued.”<\/p>\n

Yet that of course is not true,
\nwell at least it isn’t true in professional sports. All you have to
\ndo is think of all those managers, coaches and scouts, most of whom
\nat one time or another played the sport itself. Perhaps they never
\nmade it to the “bigs” or they did, but found out that their
\ntalent wasn’t above average. Yet found a way to contribute, to use their experience as a way to give back
\nto the sport that gave them a job, as the saying goes.<\/p>\n

Which begs the question, where are
\nthose jobs, the managing, coaching or scouting positions in IT?<\/p>\n

\"\"