Poll: How old are you?

[withoutfriction]

Four years ago [1], two years ago [2], and today.

Tomorrow I'd love to poll on where in the world.

[1]: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=517039

[2]: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2175588

FYI: for anyone in the 13-18ish category, if you are interested in a startup mentor (or a technical one w/ rails/node.js/meteor.js) I'm working with a few people at Stanford willing to take on mentees. Shoot me an email ([email protected])

[edw519]

58, writing more code, having more fun, reaching more people, & making more $ than ever, all of which still seem limitless:

  edw519's Hacker Quality of Life
  
  |                            ?? 
  |                          **  
  |                        **
  |                      **
  |                    **
  |                  **
  |                ** 
  |              **     
  |            **
  |          **
  |     *****
  -------------------------------
     10   20   30   40   50   60

[bjhoops1]

I was really hoping "making more" would be followed with "love". Money's great too, though. :)

[peterhi]

Pretty much the same here. Been coding since I left school in 1979. Comfortable but not really seen much money but its a great life.

However I have finally started to move into management. Meetings, be nice to clients, billing and invoicing. Bit of a pain but I can still code and finally get to try and NOT be the sort of manager I used to complain about :)

[terryjsmith]

What changed when you were 25(ish) if I may ask?

[mathattack]

I'm with you on the upwards trend. I would just toss in some non-linear jumps up as the family grows, and some setbacks as older family members become ill.

[zura]

Any advice how to stay healthy and be productive at this age? Maybe some specific treatments to lower the chance of heart attack and stroke?

[pknerd]

And how do you keep yourself energetic at this age? :) Impressive!

[rjh29]

I know you are well respected around here, but your ability to sound like a douche seems limitless too.

[jpdoctor]

God these types of polls make me feel like a geezer.

Just in case any of you whippersnappers are wondering what it feels like to start hacking in your teens and continue (in one form or another) to be hacking into your late 40s: It is pretty much the same after the first cup of coffee in the morning. Where it differs is the lull in the afternoon makes me want to nap. (So I do.)

The drag is that until I look in the mirror? I'd tell you I'm 20-something, and I have to genuinely remind myself that I'm pushing 50.

[drumdance]

I can relate. I once saw a quote, maybe from Garrison Keillor?

"Inside every old person is a young person wondering what the hell happened."

[pvnick]

Have you encountered any agism in your line of work? Do you work with "trendy" languages and technologies or do you stick with tried-and-true, enterprisey type of stuff? Have you considered moving into management or have you always just preferred getting down on your hands and knees so to speak and hacking things together?

[tritchey]

I'm sliding down the other side of that distribution myself.

One evening I was having dinner with my wife and her nearly 70 year old parents. Her mom made a comment that has stuck with me:

"You know, we still think and feel the same way we did when we were your age."

[zwieback]

For me it's actually better in my late 40s. I've seen enough fads come and go that I don't feel like I have to chase after them anymore.

[lesterbuck]

It takes about ten years to get used to how old you are.

[marshray]

I was napping hard in the afternoons and staying up late as a teenager. I was hoping that would get better with age like it does for some people. But it hasn't for me.

[elboru]

Have you noticed any speed decrement in your learning curves (learning new languages or frameworks)?

[djbender]

Age is only a number.

[girvo]

Damnit. I've started doing that nap thing, and I'm 22.

[pvnick]

There was an article on here yesterday that said something along the lines of "if you're older than 23 most startups won't even give you the time of day" or some tripe of the sort. I find that to be a negative, untrue stereotype, and it's nice to see the data back up my opinion.

[jborden13]

All of the developers at my startup are 40+. But I've always put a heavy weighting on experience being more valuable than being inexpensive. The indirect costs of younger developers can be, at times, quite high and staggering. Regardless of age/experience, if you can get shit done quickly and correctly then age is not relevant.

[jypepin]

yea it was in the article about why working in a big company http://onstartups.com/tabid/3339/bid/33111/7-Reasons-Why-You...

[dllthomas]

In what way does this data back up your opinion?

[tptacek]

We had one of these just three months ago:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5536734

[mherdeg]

And there was a great discussion about whether or not it was a good idea to let people vote twice.

[nswanberg]

Did pg ever make good on his promise to embiggen the fonts of those responders who claimed they were over 80?

[centrinoblue]

I'm 44 and have been writing web apps since the late '90s. As a UI architect now my JavaScript / front-end skills are in very high demand and I am writing by far the best code I have ever written.

A couple of years ago I faced a cross road in my career to either go into mgmt (director of UX) or commit to development. I chose to remain on the technical path and haven't regretted it one bit. I haven't experienced any overt ageism but I do feel I need to keep my skills at the cutting edge to stay on top like a cagey vet.

Looking forward (and in the mirror) I realize the clock is ticking wrt promotions and salary so I'm working on a couple of side project/apps/start-up ideas with the idea that eventually I will be able to leave the mon-fri corporate world behind once and for all.

[mindcrime]

Ugh. I turn 40 in 3 days. Thanks for the reminder. :-(

All joking aside, it isn't so bad. EDW's chart above is pretty accurate in some ways. Certainly life doesn't end at 40(ish)...

In my case, the main issues are more joint pain, more random stiffness (after long car rides or something, for example) and other minor physical issues. Well, that and adult-onset (type 2) diabetes. But that's managed with oral medication, diet and exercise, and isn't exactly the end of the world (although I was pretty unhappy the day I was diagnosed).

[mililani]

I turn 40 in a few months. And time is going by faster as I get older.

[ThomPete]

A friend of my parents is nearing 70.

In his younger years he reversed engineered the apple2 and excels in music, painting and and of course hacking like there is no tomorrow. He can literally build anything he wants to.

He is an expert in assembler and and a couple of higher level languages, but it is his assembler skills that have always amazed me because he would always produce some crazy hardware for his many passions. And he had many. This was besides running a successful bank security company.

He is a watch geek and is building this in half size from scratch litterally.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jens_Olsen's_World_Clock

One of the wrenches is 400 years to resolve around it's own axis.

Here is some of that work.

http://000fff.org/watches/523223_10150679399796150_150139365...

And here are some more of his work:

http://000fff.org/watches/134363_468677071149_7733152_o.jpg

http://000fff.org/watches/135126_468676956149_1839796_o.jpg

http://000fff.org/watches/169423_468677241149_6736953_o.jpg

He also designed this small boat harbour for the local area he lives in https://www.google.com/maps/preview#!q=bryggen%2C+copenhagen... because he bought a boat.

I somehow wonder how many Da Vinci's are out there with these kind skills. I can't even begin to think who they manage.

Would be cool to do a series of some of these holder hackers.

[jjindev]

My step-grandfather was a Danish watchmaker who moved to California. My dad was a prototype machinist at Lockheed. I program. I've always thought of that as a progression. [51-55 age bucket]

[kayoone]

wow thats some impressive engineering on the watches..im blown away! would love to see more of this!

[dano414]

A few things I found with getting older; 1. Fear of death actually lessens? At least with me. In my twenties, I was a walking Woody Allen with a brain tumor. 2. If my sex drive was like it's been lately; I might be a billionaire? I spent a lot of time chasing tail. 3. Anxiety will lessen as you age. You will probally just stop drinking in your late 40's-- just because you don't need the effect anymore. 4. You will lose a lot of good friends, if like me, you enjoyed people older than you. A therapist once told me to make friends with younger people; they will outlast you. I though it was selfish at the time, but understand now. 5. Treat your mother, or father well. They most likely were you only Cheerleaders in life. 6. Success has many heads. Meaning some of you might mike a fortune. Some might find something they truely love doing in life. And, some are blessed with good genes--yes, good looking people, many times, are treated well. 7. Your interest will vastly change as you age, at least for me. I hated computers when I was younger. I loved philosophy and art. 8. It really goes by so quick it's sad. I really mean that. Don't spend your life in an office, or anywhere if you are just waiting until retirement. Most guys die in retirement, only after collecting a few pension checks. Get used to living on the cheap, if you feel you just don't like the 9-5 B.S.. The chicks that will stay with a underemployed guy, truely love you. 9. I never thought I would get old, but it happens. 10. In terms of health-- eat less. That's all I can say. Forget about working out all the time-- joint damage. Vitamins--might make things worse? Try to get enough sleep. And moderation in drugs and alcohol. 11. Stay humble, if you ever were? Don't ever rule out a nervous breakdown. Meaning, do think you're Superman. 12. If you ever break out of middle class-- really give back. Most every rich guy I ever met, had a rich parent.

[rdl]

I don't really feel a huge change between 24 and 34. That may be because I don't like children, so the normal get married have kids thing isn't happening. I guess 34-60 or so is roughly the same then as well, except maybe with more medical issues, hopefully tempered by advances in medical science and increasing personal wealth.

Most age discrimination seems to be more birth year discrimination. I don't think 34 year olds now are treated as the incompetents that we treated 34 year olds in 1999, because back then, there really were not as many 34 year olds with Internet/tech/etc experience. (Obviously some, who are now largely the not accomplished people, but it was a small percentage of the population.)

[runjake]

Thus far:

   0-10 |o
  11-15 |.
  16-20 |OOO
  21-25 |OOOOOOOOOOO
  26-30 |OOOOOOOOOOOOO
  31-35 |OOOOOOOO
  36-40 |OOOO
  41-45 |OO
  46-50 |O
  51-55 |O
  56-60 |o
    61+ |o

[bougiefever]

I'm so old I use a combination of lit and unlit candles to represent my age in binary on my birthday cake so I don't set off the smoke alarm.

[baddox]

Seven candles ought to do it for most people for a while.

[crb3]

A coupla years ago I told 'em they could use one candle if they striped it blue, red, black, gold. They didn't get it.

[acheron]

My birthday was last weekend and you set the categories so that I just moved up. Thanks. joints creak

[hlm]

65 and still hacking ;)

[ausjke]

I'm 45, each time this kind of voting scares me, I'm indeed too old for this IT thing, but what else can I do? what are those 40s/50s doing? all managers/bosses? or out of work? I'm curious.

[cik]

Wow, so I finally registered for HN, just to be able to comment on this one. And man, I'm feeling old at 33.

I've having been developing professionally since 18. I took a weird route, spending one year at uni (17), then working full time, and getting my degrees at night before it was fashionable to do so. In ~15 years, I've had the gamut - developer to multi-geo team manager, with ownership of 9 datacenters. I vastly prefer software.

I'll echo edw519 there - quality of life increases dramatically once you get out of your 20's. The longer you're in it and learning, the more value you have. You've seen more, been around, and pick up new things faster - because they look like combinations of things you've seen before. Curve balls no longer freak you out, they're exciting.

tl;dr Getting older is actually awesome.

[GnarfGnarf]

I'm 65, been programming since 1965. Successfully escaped management. I've never been bored, always having a great time. Just a few months ago I learned DirectX and wrote a 3D app. There are only a few jobs that beat programming (acting, jet pilot), but they're harder to get.

[Enquiry]

People aged 1-20: How did you find HN? HN isn't easily found on search engines (except for the exact keywords "hacker" and "news"). I can't imagine how a 15 year old is stumbling upon Hacker News, other than a mentor or parent referring them.

[dysoco]

I'm 15. Probably discovered it because of /r/programming in Reddit, can't remember exactly.

I came for the technical discussion, not for the startup scene.

[DanielBMarkham]

So, at the time I looked, roughly 500 20-something punks, and roughly 50 of us 40-something geezers.

Dang, odds are that nobody I meet in the old folk's home is going to know anything at all about functional programming or Lean Startups.

[gwright]

Hmm. New startup idea: Hacker Retirement Community

[91bananas]

Good, you'll be better for it!

[arc_of_descent]

I turn 36 in 3 weeks. Nothing much has changed except health issues. I just took a full medical test yesterday (liver, kidney, diabetes, etc.) and turns out I'm quite healthy. I exercise regularly.

But not mentally. I've suffered from alcohol addiction since the past 4 years. I've been diagnosed with soft bipolar disorder and acute social anxiety. Occupational hazards I guess. :)

So, people who are below 30, watch your health! That's all you have left as you get older.

[YZF]

This curve will probably have good correlation to the penetration of personal computers and the Internet when people are teenagers. The .com boom in the early 2000's (edit- ~'97-'00) brought a lot of new people into the industry and that's going to be reflected (those people are now in their early thirties) and the people in their 20's are those that got exposed to technology as a result of the .com boom.