[for the record, I'm 58 & and an active software developer]
There are two points I'd like to add:
My brain isn't as elastic as a younger programmer's. My brother, a software developer close to my age, once said, "It's as if I used to have 20 registers, and now I'm down to 12". I can't keep as much in my head as once. My twenty-something co-worker, Belinda, once remarked, "It takes you a while to read code & understand what it's doing". She was right. Using solely that metric (elasticity), I'd have to say that the forty-year-old version of myself was faster than the fifty-eight-year-old version.
The other point I'd like to make is that there's a certain class of developer who has grown tired of developing & learning new skills, but doesn't want to retire. I remember my co-worker Larry would spend far too much time reminiscing about 640k computers and showing pictures of his grand kids. He didn't seem to want to work much. They let him go, and though I liked him personally, I think management made the right decision.
There are two points I'd like to add:
My brain isn't as elastic as a younger programmer's. My brother, a software developer close to my age, once said, "It's as if I used to have 20 registers, and now I'm down to 12". I can't keep as much in my head as once. My twenty-something co-worker, Belinda, once remarked, "It takes you a while to read code & understand what it's doing". She was right. Using solely that metric (elasticity), I'd have to say that the forty-year-old version of myself was faster than the fifty-eight-year-old version.
The other point I'd like to make is that there's a certain class of developer who has grown tired of developing & learning new skills, but doesn't want to retire. I remember my co-worker Larry would spend far too much time reminiscing about 640k computers and showing pictures of his grand kids. He didn't seem to want to work much. They let him go, and though I liked him personally, I think management made the right decision.