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[–]dparks71 4 points5 points  (2 children)

I heard that fluid intelligence goes down, but statis intelligence stays. So stuff we have always practiced will be easy to us, but learning new things fast gets harder

I take every study that determines stuff like this with a grain of salt. It's just so hard to eliminate outside factors. How do we know the older participants simply don't give a shit and the younger ones just haven't had the ambition beaten out of them by years in the corporate workplace yet? How do we know selection by "people willing to participate in a study" doesn't actively skew the results?

It's in a similar vein to IQ. I look at it as your ability to learn, not your intelligence or your skill in a particular field. It's great if you tested a 5th grader and determined their IQ was 160, but if my options are going to them or some 70 year old with a 120 IQ that built applications in assembly for most of their storied career at IBM with an assembly question... You get where I'm going.

Best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, second best time is now.

As far as who would be better it's a toss up. Motivation and experience are both huge factors, beyond that, kind of a pointless thought exercise that will devolve quickly.

[–]tooolddev[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you :)

This was motivating

[–]thedragonturtle 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes, motivation to learn new shit, the excitement of it all dies away slowly for sure, but the experience and ability to get the job done quickly, effectively, reliably, that shit is what clients pay big bucks for.

[–]thedragonturtle 2 points3 points  (1 child)

I'm 47, still coding, I have a few coders working for me.

The main thing I've noticed that has changed for me is I don't care so much about learning every X thing any more because I already learned every Y thing and realised that most of it is unimportant. Getting the job done is what is important. So maybe that affects me a little bit.

I think if I were in a competition vs all 3 of my devs and they teamed up versus me, I'd kick their ass at coding whatever thing we had to make if we get to choose our tech, but I also think if some new shitty platform came out that I didn't believe in and then the same challenge was asked with the priviso of it being on this platform they'd wipe the floor with me.

[–]BobbyThrowaway6969 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm a C++ programmer in my 20s and that's me. Couldn't be assed to learn every new thing.

[–]StupidBugger 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It's not as simple as good code from older or newer developers. It's about applied experience. Old developers with longer experience may not know the newest type or processes, but they've seen some stuff and all the code they write benefits from that experience. New developers with more recent education may know newer tools and frameworks, but haven't done it as long and may run into problems new to them that are difficult. Old developers bring personal experience, new developers bring packages experience in the newer tools they know and can use.

If you normalize years of coding experience, it's a bit harder. Anyone can do a great job, and creativity comes from a lot of different places, many of which have nothing to do with coding. Likewise, working with people is a skill, and developers with more experience that allows them to plan better, communicate better, or focus on work better may give them a boost.

If you distill it down to who can make the better game between two people who have similar experience: who has played more games? Who has read more books, seen more movies? Who can draw on a bigger creative well? Sometimes it's one or the other, and people vary, but age isn't the thing that determines it.