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Ask HN: Programmer's Best Years

by TheAlchemist on 6/4/25, 7:59 AM with 5 comments

• by scrapheap on 6/4/25, 9:33 AM

  I'm in my early 50s and each year I still feel I'm better at my craft than I was the year before, which was better than the year before that.

  I think that in some ways I've been lucky as I started back when you could hold the entire knowledge of how your computer works in your head backed up by a single manual (seriously the old manuals for 8bit computers were some of the best documentation that I've ever seen).

  That knowledge was then built upon bit by bit as the technology advanced. So I've never been overwhelmed by the mass of information that someone starting today would need to get their heads round (Respect to those who have started to learn their craft in the last 5 years and have a deep understanding of how everything fits together).

• by solardev on 6/4/25, 8:12 AM

  40 now. In my teens and 20s, I was much more curious and eager to spend hours and days learning everything about every part of the stack. I started building websites when I was 7 or 8 years old and just kinda kept going, but peaked in the 20s for sure.

  But I didn't learn Javascript till my 30s, and then transitioned into that as my full time job after a couple years.

  My more recent jobs have become a lot easier and more relaxed, mostly just riding off what I had learned from earlier years.

  That also means I'm way behind the curve now, and will probably be completely obsolete in a couple more years. I don't have the same interest in learning yet another language or framework as I once did. The industry has no use for tired old men like me who don't know anything about AI, lol.

• by gary17the on 6/4/25, 8:23 AM

  From my experience, the "common assumption" that your brain works best only when you are in your 20s or 30s is a complete and utter nonsense. You might get a bit more burned out with time or simply become less passionate about technology in itself or professional careers in general and instead care more about your real-world life, but if you keep your body in good physical condition and keep pushing your brain, you only become more efficient and faster at programming every year, due to your accumulated experience and improved intuition. (Consider the Linus Torvalds guy.) It is only the corporate environment that actually forces you to switch to managerial responsibilities.