Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

As a 40+ yo dev I want to agree with you but:

>I've forgotten more frameworks than most coders will ever learn.

Forgotten knowledge is worthless

> I mostly don't care about programming languages, they're roughly the same and I can learn a new one in a couple weeks.

I used to think that, its possibly true, but the platform that comes with the language certainly can't be learnt in a couple of weeks so I dont think this is true as it used to be.

> I know technologies like Rails and SQL, but I don't play with the new toys as much as I used to, becuase lately I would rather solve a new problem or build a new tool than learn a new tool.

This is a real problem for you if companies are hiring for people that know the new toys.

> It's another world, and a lot of companies just don't bother...Thankfully I have no desire to work at any of those companies...There are plenty of companies trying to hire people to solve actual problems

That's great now, but in the future the job market might not be so tight and then people with your attitude might find it really tough.



I think the point on forgotten frame works / new tech is -- nothing is _really_ new. Knowing ten web frameworks inside out isn't really 10x more than knowing one, because they have a tremendous amount of overlap. Relatedly, I've forgotten how a couple frameworks work because there's nothing interesting left behind, that isn't present in the newer ones. I'm quite sure if I had to go pick one back up, it would look very familiar. perhaps I know more about it now than I did when I "knew" it.


You didn’t work with a C# ASP.Net WebForm dev who before that was a WinForm dev trying to grok ASP.Net MVC.


Great, but that means that for the "knowing frameworks" box, there is no advantage in hiring an experience dev over a younger one.


The general thrust of this thread is that there is no advantage in hiring an experienced developer over a younger one.

You might be getting a mid-six-figure salary in your first job, but you probably ought to be socking it away because you can't expect raises.


> Forgotten knowledge is worthless

Not really, you pick up something you forget much faster than something you've never seen before. It's all in there somewhere.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: