Nice Fairytale for the youngsters.

Now for the real story.

51-22 = 29 years of programming for the same company. Which means John started programming about the time the IBM XT came out. So I doubt his MASM 4.1 and C skills would have lasted him the 29 years he worked at BIG JOB. In fact, given the pace of change, its pretty much a go he didn't last 29 years at any single BIG JOB.

Worse yet, when John started he likely worked on a Mainframe or Micro using VMS or a commercial *nix variant and had COBOL skills. Since the WWW was still a text based protocol running on a military network John wasn't likely to have any Internet skills at this point.

John likely ran a Wildcat BBS, or E systems communication system using dialup. John did this until about 1992 when the Net finally took. Along the way John continued with COBOL and his Mainframe buddies shifted over to the net. After Y2K fewer and fewer of his buddies stayed in COBOL and the market for his skills went through the roof.

Today John still hacks out COBOL for legacy systems and makes about triple what he did in 1989 when he started because the idiot children of this age think the only way you can carve out a living is with your RUBY slippers, drinking a cup of JAVA, while you fight it out with INDIA for your job.

But John doesn't have that problem, because believe it or not he knows what an AS400 is, and YOU DO NOT.

John is socking away enough bank by being available for legacy gigs because the market passed him by. Thank god for that...

And yes I know John. More than a couple of us old farts do...

Now lets stroll down that hill and have a poke with all them cows....

2 centavos..

Many of those kids in India know what COBOL is too, they were taught by Infosys....

Before Y2K this was a factor. Now days security sensitivities have driven the work back home.

According to my old COBOL professor, it's notoriously hard to outsource COBOL development. Apparently Americans were the first and (for the most part) only to rely on big iron so much to need mainframes.

Side note: I had my class in COBOL in 2005, my dad took it in roughly 1975.

What I learned from this post:

* The author thinks startups are better than large companies

* The author thinks senior developers at large companies are older than startup developers --- else, why bring up age?

* Despite admonishing his protagonist to learn one new language per year, the author believes "career rust" is a problem of age --- else the story would have worked with a 28 year old dev still writing in PHP.

* The author really likes unit tests.

I thought it was interesting that this cycle takes 20+ years in this author's world.

I've worked with many 28 old wring in PHP4. But, somehow, I feel that there is hope for them - someone 50 year old dog might show them the light.

I've made John 50 because I wanted to make it too late for him to fix things (although he still stands a pretty good chance to get back on track). Do not wait for something to happen. Stop repeating "Will read this book after the next release" - start reading now in you spare time.

Improving constantly is the main moral of this story. It has nothing to do with age.

You did not just gain credibility by saying "50 is too late for him to fix things".

Assuming the developer was wise with his money, he should be fine. I don't feel too sorry for him.

Assuming the only sharpening tool in the "youngster's" box is picking up another vanity language for their resume, I don't feel sorry for him either, because he's busy kicking their asses on real projects.