I _started_ working as a developer when in my mid-30's. I am 50 now. I get paid more than I did when I was younger, and I generally have less trouble getting a job. However, two caveats:
1) your age is not necessarily held against you, but it also doesn't buy you anything. Expect to need to learn new skills every year, just like your 20-something coworkers.
2) the older you get, the easier it is to feel snarky about every new technology that comes along, and nobody wants to work with that guy, even when they are sometimes right. Suppress the urge to pour scorn on every new library/framework/language/architecture that comes along. If it is actually that bad, then it will become apparent. In the meantime, see what you can learn from it.
Thank you for number two. Enduring the (perceived, not necessarily objective) idiocy of cargo culting and reinventing shinier but crappier wheels can be tiring.
On the other hand, there are always amazing new ways to think about code, new languages, new perspectives.
It’s an exciting field.
P.S. if you’re over 40 you owe it to yourself to read Dan Lyon’s Disrupted. He’s also the guy behind Fake Steve Jobs blog.
As a gray-haired programmer who happens to be on interview teams, I interview a lot of older candidates along with a team of younger professionals.
It's not so much their age, but rather they have a tendency to be set in their ways, are less eager to learn and explore and change.
On a personal level, I'm impressed you've stuck with Perl all these years, and I'd love to nerd out with you over a beer later. On a professional level, I'm wondering if you're an inflexible curmudgeon.
Also as an older person, you're going to be expected to have some good basic management skills and wisdom. It's just the course of human nature.
Another couple of anti-bias tactics:
1. Dress nicely and modern. I see a lot of candidates who wear a suit that looks like its been slept in, or it looks like a suit they bought in the 80s. I'm not telling you to wear skinny jeans and Supreme shirts, but just dress relatively clean and modern.
You can get away with a lot on this front as a youngster, but it really works against you once you become one of us grays.
2. Stay fit/eat right. It doesn't do you any well if you're old, and overweight, and breathing hard during the interview.
I believe (vanilla) software development is a young man's/woman's game. I realized this last year at age 38 and I've been rapidly trying to alter my career trajectory.
- If you aren't a specialist, you are constantly competing against 20-somethings who will always be more current in their skills and breadth than yourself, because they have more free time than you have (e.g. I have a wife, kid)
- I've written GUI widgets from scratch, servers from scratch, same thing with linked lists, sorting, etc. Guess what? That doesn't likely justify an ever-increasing salary. No one cares.
- Older programmers tend to be very opinionated and have lots of war stories. This gets on peoples nerves. The stereotype, based entirely on truth, is that they are cranky and hard to work with.
I don't believe the same is true in specialized disciplines like engineering or modelling/simulation, numerical programming, etc. A 40, 50, 60 year-old engineer/mathematician/analytics developer doesn't have the same stigma. Those decades of experience are invaluable. The fundamentals of engineering or statistics aren't being reinvented every 3-5 years. Web development skills that are 5 years old are literally worthless today. Aside from general problem solving techniques, unless you've really specialized, the stuff you developed 10-20 years ago is of minimal value today and that experience (writing software that is now obsolete and could now be written in a fraction of the time, likely!) doesn't make you competitive against younger programmers.
My takeaway was to go deep as possible into analytics and math. AI, ML, anything that requires heavy math background, those are what I'm focusing on now.
Younger developers are way more naive and out to prove their skills by engaging in any fool's errand they are presented with. Older folks have a lot of heuristics and experience that pushes them away from conventional collaboration and makes them unwilling to engage in negative work or emotional labour.
There is definitely a middle ground, I believe emotional agility is at the heart of 'true' agility and the emotions have been highly overlooked by people who either master the art of bottling it up (looking at you former managers) or brooding (that's on me and many of us I believe)
The middle ground is becoming aware of the spectrum of unpleasant emotions and learning to feel in more depth while using intellect to guide your own actions.
For example, one can sense disgust at a certain codebase. That's perfectly acceptable, and it doesn't have to be anyone's fault. The disgust will drive us to want to improve it. Unfortunately, our managers tell us `bottle up your disgust and do some more disgusting things so we can ship` in which case young guys jump to the challenge and old guys tend to feel completely undervalued.
Edit: this statement is intentionally opinionated. It's alright to have an emotional reaction to it. I'd be interested to know what emotions it evokes in the reader.
The stereotype, based entirely on truth, is that they are cranky and hard to work with.
That's kind of full on ageism don't you think? I am an older developer and I am easier going than some younger members of my team who are very aggressive and overly emotional when discussing technical problems.
An example for your specialist skillset theory: Simon Marlow being hired by Facebook. Guarantee he's raking in the dough. Why? He solves hard problems.
I have the opposite experience to be honest. I'm 42 and don't see anyone being way ahead of me due to their age or stamina. Maybe its because I didn't start this career until my mid 30s though.
in my view, the grays are better at vanilla development, while the upstarts want to spend their time diving into an endless parade of frameworks. freaking annoying.
You could easily go into Business Intelligence. That area is full of consultants who get tons of cash for just knowing a single database or application and spending their days at customers helping them use it properly.
> I believe (vanilla) software development is a young man's/woman's game. I realized this last year at age 38 and I've been rapidly trying to alter my career trajectory.
Whether you think you can, or think you cannot: you're probably right.
How come I came to the opposite conclusion as you with similiar family obligations...where else can you earn 120k USD and work remote to spend time raising your children and banging your wife in between coding sessions throughout the day
> If you aren't a specialist, you are constantly competing against 20-somethings who will always be more current in their skills and breadth than yourself, because they have more free time than you have (e.g. I have a wife, kid)
I'm assuming that your wife is stay at home? In which case you would have more free time, not less.
On the other hand, if she works... then I understand.
This following is meant this in sincere and non-snarky way:
If the problems you are working on can actually be done/solved at a large table with lots of people around, then it probably isn't a problem that requires 10+ years of experience i.e. it probably could be done by someone younger/cheaper. [Of course, if you "hack" around this by coming in early, working from home, etc. you aren't actually "doing it at a table with lots of people around you".]
I know lots of gray haired guys solving problems in the desktop and embedded space. I'm a not-a-genius developer/consultant and at 0x38 years old, I have no problem getting work.
0x38 is cool. Never thought about doing that. Hex years. Makes everything seem younger. I'm still an 0x20-something then, not so bad! :)
I thin I'd like to get into the niche / older spaces, liked embedded / desktop, but I wanted to learn a lot about web dev / cloud first, based on interest and curiosity.
I programmed in C when younger, and had an embedded opportunity a couple years ago in it which I turned down, but I think I'd like to take that up now.
Do you think there's more work / less applicants ( or at least a higher such ratio ), in C / embedded, etc?
I'm 46 and this question seems a little ridiculous if you're located in a good market. In the bay area there is such demand for developers that you will find a job. It may not be the most amazing, perfect job for you but the pay won't be "bad".
However, I do see a few problems:
1. If you've been out of the algorithm, leetcode, game for a while, passing the bs interviews is going to be a challenge. The truth is that almost no one uses that shit or they just google an implementation. So, you're choice is to dedicate a significant portion of your free-time to studying or use the shotgun approach unless you have a network "in".
2. It's probably going to be difficult for you if you refuse to learn new things. I've been specializing in front-end for a while and the framework I'm an expert in (Ember.js) is basically dead. Time to learn react. Luckily 90% of what I know translates.
3. If you want ever-increasing salaries, you're going to have a hard time. There is a cut-off for even the best senior developers. The only way up is management.
If you can still add value as a developer, someone will hire you.
If you're doing anything more involved than CRUD apps knowing the "bs things" is pretty useful; especially if you think you qualify as a "senior developer". Mindlessly copying from google won't tell you the right questions to ask, and won't help you mentor new talent. If you're found yourself at 40+ and don't know the fundamentals that tells me you've done little to no mentoring and probably don't fit in my organization.
Given (1) 3 also becomes a bit of dead end. If you're actually on a principle track (that's ownership, aptitude, etc) senior developer tracks can be nearly unbounded; especially at the usual suspects and increasingly at companies serious about growing their technology department.
I'd caution against striving for "just adding value"; being one of the people that have 2 years of experience 10 times is going to cut you off from most employment opportunities.
Ken Thomson and Rob Pike still program. They are inspiring people I wanna follow not those useless and inefficient bureaucrats in charge of "human resources".
As programmers, we should take the control of the recruitment with coopting. The market is in our favor. We are more needed than we need. We can do that smoothly and the good business men will understand they can save a lot of money with a such system.
I already know few good programmers who are available and I can recommend.
Fellows, grey bias, impostor syndrome, burnout, toxicity, anxiety and the others are all symptoms of the rigid mindstate that permeates our industry.
It has to do with the curse of comfort and a lack of emotional agility which is exceptionally pronounced in this industry for many reasons which I shall not accentuate here except to state that `casual` is another word for `toxic` in my view.
I would care to suggest to everyone in this thread the following work: http://a.co/3Wlz2bw
Having read this book my views on how we ought to be engaging in our day-to-day have been completely transformed. Going from a rigid mindstate to a growth mindstate changes the whole game and I bet you anything it would go a long way to alleviating the burden of grey bias and all the other evils we face.
I'm 41 and doing great. I 'work' for an amazing organization (work is in quotes because I do exactly what I'd do if I was retired) and have a number of extremely interesting problems on my plate.
A few caveats:
1.) I don't bash new frameworks (even if I know they're a bad idea) until I've built something non trivial with them.
2.) My education and experience are outside the norm for developers where I live. I have a business degree (with a marketing major) and have spent most of my life working for or founding startups.
3.) I love introducing people to each other. When you get older, you're usually much more connected than you imagine.
4.) I make fun of myself when it is deserved.
5.) I praise others when it is deserved.
6.) I stay current. Hell, I have built things with blockchains even though I didn't think it would be a good idea.
Basically, I stay current and try to be a good member of a team.
Agree; being a good team player, someone folks want to work with, counts for a hell of lot, IMO. Too many devs, young and old, are oblivious to this. Humility, a sense of humour, and being generous with credit are all great traits to help ensure a long and happy career!
my personal situation is: 45yo, just back to the corporate world after bankrupting my own consultancy company ( i shot myself on the foot with the tax and labor laws ) as a senior java developer.
I fly circles around my 20-something teammates, and also around the tech team from our current client... became the de facto tech leader without even trying. Bad thing is, now i have more responsabilities than i bargained for, and dont't have that "workdays are just payed vacations" feeling anymore.
The average age of my team >30 and it's the best team I ever was a part of. It's not the dead end, but rather the light at the end of the tunnel..Hope it's not the freight train coming my way though...
I hear that, but I haven't seen it. The age range where I work (small company) goes from 20 to almost 70. Same at the last two $BIG_CORP jobs, except there the bottom of the range was a bit higher.
I don’t think so. Building software is a creative process that benefits from team diversity in multiple aspects. You need both young and older people. I’m 54 and still going strong. :-)
I mostly work with firmware, which hasn't seen much innovation, especially on small devices (finally Rust is coming along). There is no way youngsters can compete with me in breadth of experience. They are still building their toolbox and design patterns, so they can learn a lot, including from me. I value their appetite.
I see myself as a child of my time, with home-grown skills typical for a time-frame. I see that time-frame fading into history much like pop-music is doing. Going by the example of rockstars, maybe my skills will still be in demand 20 years from now, because the original author has so much more depth.
In some ways I am at the peak of my skills, more focused on results and a well balanced, easy to evolve design. But grey, so not cool I suppose ;)
40 here and not seeing a flagging salary or problem with work. I just get calls from larger companies than I did when I was younger. Stay away from the startups, Keep your skills up to date, drop the complaining habit if you have it and find ways to be a positive influence around your community, find a decent company that does things you care about, and settle in.
A lot of good answers in this thread. I want to emphasize that, though ageism clearly exist, it more than anything else depends on you. I have many colleagues and friends that started coding in their childhood (like me) who got burned out after doing it for decades. I have also experienced several times the feeling that coding just doesn't motivate me anymore. Software development is quite different from other technical work, constant pressure to learn new things while at the same time nothing really changes.
What helps is to acquire additonal skills or knowledge outside IT, for example domain knowledge of an industry. This takes time and dedication. Personally, I got very interested in training and I'm now building a training business.
Also important to keep in mind that there exist a whole different IT world outside startups and what you read on HN where ageism is much less a problem.
I find the whole hypothesis of the "grey bias" to be rather baffling. My personal thought is that boomers are puzzled that this industry doesn't confirm to the standards set in the other engineering discipline (ie younger workers are treated like shit and expected to like it with next to no advancement opportunities).
In my experience, older (20+ years exp) workers that have kept their skills sharp and were above average throughout their careers tend to do well. However, those that expect software to work like other engineering fields, where seniority is a sole function of tenure, tend to take arms and complain about the new generation out performing them.
From an employer perspective, as long as the employee is a good asset there's no dead-end. To be a good asset as a developer, you need to be good at coding and somehow easy to work with. That's it for an employer. Now, from an employee perspective it's a complete different story. When you have fresh grads coming in every day with a lot of energy and already up to date with all the latest trends and technologies, no family life, no mortgages, no kids, no responsibilities. How do you keep up with that at 40? They can spend 15h at the office who cares.
Those kids can code 15 hours a day if they want. I'll code 8, and I'll still produce working code faster than them. I won't waste (as much) time with flawed designs. I won't write nearly as many bugs that then have to be fixed. My code will be more maintainable.
In short, I'm more valuable than those kids. If an employer can't see that, then the employer is still at the kid level, and they aren't someone I want to work for.
But if you're going to try to compete with the kids when you have just the same skills, well, that's a hard road. You have to have gotten better over the years.
Your mileage may vary of course. But i’ve been independent consulting now for 25yrs. Started doing primarily dba/unix work in the 90’s and now of course cloud heavy. Devops is in extremely high demand. i do docker, ecs, terraform, kubernetes, aws, gcp. Python. postgresql, mysql, redshift. athena. it goes on & on.
yes as others have mentioned you have to be willing to learn. to be also excited to learn. that’s key.
i’m also much more mature now. so i can work well with anyone and see perspectives others miss.
I'm 31, my company also contracts a dev that is almost 60. He knows much more than me about architecture, old systems that we still use, I would not want to do his work. I work on the newer stuff.
As I get older I plan to shift to a different role. Maybe management, I am waiting for a position to open in a city for a dev project manager. I'm not really concerned.
Not really sure if this mindset is more regionally based than anything else but as a full stack developer working in Toronto at 24 years old I've never heard of this stigma in the workplace. The past 2 companies I've worked at have all had an average age of 40+. Same story for most of my college friends now working in the GTA.
[+] [-] rossdavidh|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] andrei_says_|7 years ago|reply
On the other hand, there are always amazing new ways to think about code, new languages, new perspectives.
It’s an exciting field.
P.S. if you’re over 40 you owe it to yourself to read Dan Lyon’s Disrupted. He’s also the guy behind Fake Steve Jobs blog.
[+] [-] muzani|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] runjake|7 years ago|reply
It's not so much their age, but rather they have a tendency to be set in their ways, are less eager to learn and explore and change.
On a personal level, I'm impressed you've stuck with Perl all these years, and I'd love to nerd out with you over a beer later. On a professional level, I'm wondering if you're an inflexible curmudgeon.
Also as an older person, you're going to be expected to have some good basic management skills and wisdom. It's just the course of human nature.
Another couple of anti-bias tactics:
1. Dress nicely and modern. I see a lot of candidates who wear a suit that looks like its been slept in, or it looks like a suit they bought in the 80s. I'm not telling you to wear skinny jeans and Supreme shirts, but just dress relatively clean and modern.
You can get away with a lot on this front as a youngster, but it really works against you once you become one of us grays.
2. Stay fit/eat right. It doesn't do you any well if you're old, and overweight, and breathing hard during the interview.
[+] [-] anon284271|7 years ago|reply
- If you aren't a specialist, you are constantly competing against 20-somethings who will always be more current in their skills and breadth than yourself, because they have more free time than you have (e.g. I have a wife, kid)
- I've written GUI widgets from scratch, servers from scratch, same thing with linked lists, sorting, etc. Guess what? That doesn't likely justify an ever-increasing salary. No one cares.
- Older programmers tend to be very opinionated and have lots of war stories. This gets on peoples nerves. The stereotype, based entirely on truth, is that they are cranky and hard to work with.
I don't believe the same is true in specialized disciplines like engineering or modelling/simulation, numerical programming, etc. A 40, 50, 60 year-old engineer/mathematician/analytics developer doesn't have the same stigma. Those decades of experience are invaluable. The fundamentals of engineering or statistics aren't being reinvented every 3-5 years. Web development skills that are 5 years old are literally worthless today. Aside from general problem solving techniques, unless you've really specialized, the stuff you developed 10-20 years ago is of minimal value today and that experience (writing software that is now obsolete and could now be written in a fraction of the time, likely!) doesn't make you competitive against younger programmers.
My takeaway was to go deep as possible into analytics and math. AI, ML, anything that requires heavy math background, those are what I'm focusing on now.
[+] [-] artsyxxx|7 years ago|reply
There is definitely a middle ground, I believe emotional agility is at the heart of 'true' agility and the emotions have been highly overlooked by people who either master the art of bottling it up (looking at you former managers) or brooding (that's on me and many of us I believe)
The middle ground is becoming aware of the spectrum of unpleasant emotions and learning to feel in more depth while using intellect to guide your own actions.
For example, one can sense disgust at a certain codebase. That's perfectly acceptable, and it doesn't have to be anyone's fault. The disgust will drive us to want to improve it. Unfortunately, our managers tell us `bottle up your disgust and do some more disgusting things so we can ship` in which case young guys jump to the challenge and old guys tend to feel completely undervalued.
Edit: this statement is intentionally opinionated. It's alright to have an emotional reaction to it. I'd be interested to know what emotions it evokes in the reader.
[+] [-] papaf|7 years ago|reply
That's kind of full on ageism don't you think? I am an older developer and I am easier going than some younger members of my team who are very aggressive and overly emotional when discussing technical problems.
[+] [-] hood_syntax|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cozuya|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ribble|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] some_account|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jabberslocku|7 years ago|reply
Whether you think you can, or think you cannot: you're probably right.
How come I came to the opposite conclusion as you with similiar family obligations...where else can you earn 120k USD and work remote to spend time raising your children and banging your wife in between coding sessions throughout the day
> If you aren't a specialist, you are constantly competing against 20-somethings who will always be more current in their skills and breadth than yourself, because they have more free time than you have (e.g. I have a wife, kid)
I'm assuming that your wife is stay at home? In which case you would have more free time, not less.
On the other hand, if she works... then I understand.
[+] [-] chrisbennet|7 years ago|reply
If the problems you are working on can actually be done/solved at a large table with lots of people around, then it probably isn't a problem that requires 10+ years of experience i.e. it probably could be done by someone younger/cheaper. [Of course, if you "hack" around this by coming in early, working from home, etc. you aren't actually "doing it at a table with lots of people around you".]
I know lots of gray haired guys solving problems in the desktop and embedded space. I'm a not-a-genius developer/consultant and at 0x38 years old, I have no problem getting work.
[+] [-] dosy|7 years ago|reply
I thin I'd like to get into the niche / older spaces, liked embedded / desktop, but I wanted to learn a lot about web dev / cloud first, based on interest and curiosity.
I programmed in C when younger, and had an embedded opportunity a couple years ago in it which I turned down, but I think I'd like to take that up now.
Do you think there's more work / less applicants ( or at least a higher such ratio ), in C / embedded, etc?
[+] [-] zerr|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] HocusLocus|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] danieltillett|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Mc_Big_G|7 years ago|reply
However, I do see a few problems:
1. If you've been out of the algorithm, leetcode, game for a while, passing the bs interviews is going to be a challenge. The truth is that almost no one uses that shit or they just google an implementation. So, you're choice is to dedicate a significant portion of your free-time to studying or use the shotgun approach unless you have a network "in".
2. It's probably going to be difficult for you if you refuse to learn new things. I've been specializing in front-end for a while and the framework I'm an expert in (Ember.js) is basically dead. Time to learn react. Luckily 90% of what I know translates.
3. If you want ever-increasing salaries, you're going to have a hard time. There is a cut-off for even the best senior developers. The only way up is management.
If you can still add value as a developer, someone will hire you.
[+] [-] lordCarbonFiber|7 years ago|reply
Given (1) 3 also becomes a bit of dead end. If you're actually on a principle track (that's ownership, aptitude, etc) senior developer tracks can be nearly unbounded; especially at the usual suspects and increasingly at companies serious about growing their technology department.
I'd caution against striving for "just adding value"; being one of the people that have 2 years of experience 10 times is going to cut you off from most employment opportunities.
[+] [-] blahville|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] mabynogy|7 years ago|reply
As programmers, we should take the control of the recruitment with coopting. The market is in our favor. We are more needed than we need. We can do that smoothly and the good business men will understand they can save a lot of money with a such system.
I already know few good programmers who are available and I can recommend.
[+] [-] artsyxxx|7 years ago|reply
It has to do with the curse of comfort and a lack of emotional agility which is exceptionally pronounced in this industry for many reasons which I shall not accentuate here except to state that `casual` is another word for `toxic` in my view.
I would care to suggest to everyone in this thread the following work: http://a.co/3Wlz2bw
Having read this book my views on how we ought to be engaging in our day-to-day have been completely transformed. Going from a rigid mindstate to a growth mindstate changes the whole game and I bet you anything it would go a long way to alleviating the burden of grey bias and all the other evils we face.
[+] [-] hluska|7 years ago|reply
A few caveats:
1.) I don't bash new frameworks (even if I know they're a bad idea) until I've built something non trivial with them.
2.) My education and experience are outside the norm for developers where I live. I have a business degree (with a marketing major) and have spent most of my life working for or founding startups.
3.) I love introducing people to each other. When you get older, you're usually much more connected than you imagine.
4.) I make fun of myself when it is deserved.
5.) I praise others when it is deserved.
6.) I stay current. Hell, I have built things with blockchains even though I didn't think it would be a good idea.
Basically, I stay current and try to be a good member of a team.
[+] [-] brianmcc|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] slipwalker|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] andrei_says_|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] growlist|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sAbakumoff|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] HeyLaughingBoy|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pieterr|7 years ago|reply
Also, not every ‘new’ development is as new as it appears; “Old is the New New”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbgsfeGvg3E
[+] [-] childintime|7 years ago|reply
I see myself as a child of my time, with home-grown skills typical for a time-frame. I see that time-frame fading into history much like pop-music is doing. Going by the example of rockstars, maybe my skills will still be in demand 20 years from now, because the original author has so much more depth.
In some ways I am at the peak of my skills, more focused on results and a well balanced, easy to evolve design. But grey, so not cool I suppose ;)
[+] [-] m3talsmith|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] amorphous|7 years ago|reply
What helps is to acquire additonal skills or knowledge outside IT, for example domain knowledge of an industry. This takes time and dedication. Personally, I got very interested in training and I'm now building a training business.
Also important to keep in mind that there exist a whole different IT world outside startups and what you read on HN where ageism is much less a problem.
[+] [-] lordCarbonFiber|7 years ago|reply
In my experience, older (20+ years exp) workers that have kept their skills sharp and were above average throughout their careers tend to do well. However, those that expect software to work like other engineering fields, where seniority is a sole function of tenure, tend to take arms and complain about the new generation out performing them.
[+] [-] bsvalley|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] AnimalMuppet|7 years ago|reply
Those kids can code 15 hours a day if they want. I'll code 8, and I'll still produce working code faster than them. I won't waste (as much) time with flawed designs. I won't write nearly as many bugs that then have to be fixed. My code will be more maintainable.
In short, I'm more valuable than those kids. If an employer can't see that, then the employer is still at the kid level, and they aren't someone I want to work for.
But if you're going to try to compete with the kids when you have just the same skills, well, that's a hard road. You have to have gotten better over the years.
[+] [-] hullsean|7 years ago|reply
yes as others have mentioned you have to be willing to learn. to be also excited to learn. that’s key.
i’m also much more mature now. so i can work well with anyone and see perspectives others miss.
opportunities abound !
[+] [-] avgDev|7 years ago|reply
As I get older I plan to shift to a different role. Maybe management, I am waiting for a position to open in a city for a dev project manager. I'm not really concerned.
[+] [-] alunchbox|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] framebit|7 years ago|reply