Why age in software is bullshit
I ran this on my blog two years ago, before I was cross-posting here. It seems this is a perfect idea for this community. Let’s see what happens. :-)
It goes like this.
- Dave sure is shipping a lot of stuff.
- And that’s amazing considering how old he is.
Okay that’s bullshit. I’ll tell you why.
It’s because of my age that I can ship so much stuff.
I have a huge toolkit of solved problems, both on my computer and in my mind.
I’ve done all this stuff, 18 times before. I still do new things, but there are lots of struggles behind me. I know how to write a language interpreter, database, scheduler, a program editor, a presentation program, outliner, operating system, text editor, browser, aggregator, content management system, blogging tools, draw program. All kinds of servers. And even more important, I know how things fit together, big things. I’ve created a few standards. Not everything you could do in a career, but pretty close to it.
So you all need to get over this. People who love to create software will be doing it a lot longer than you think. And if you think this is something that only young people can do, you are wrong.
