
Ask HN: Why do “Young” programmers think they know more than “Old” programmers - ianpurton
I&#x27;m not accusing every &quot;Young&quot; programmer of this but often on HN I see people post and make this assumption. One guy looking for work was told that he still had a chance because he was &quot;less than 35&quot;.<p>I&#x27;ve also heard people say things like &quot;I&#x27;ve got nothing against older programmers but....&quot;<p>That was from a guy with only 1 programming language under his belt and experience of only 1 software process.<p>So my question is, at what point does a younger programmer become more experienced than his&#x2F;her older more experienced self?<p>When do they know more languages?
Experience more processes and organizations large and small?
Have more side projects?
Have dealt with more difficult people?
Have read more books on CS theory?
Have learned more frameworks and watch frameworks come and go?<p>Just curious.
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dredmorbius
Dunning-Kruger is a hell of a drug.

Some young people _are_ smart. Many of the successful ones, however, cannot
distinguish "smart" from "lucky".

Old-timers have seen some shit. Bad management. Bad investors. Bad marketing.
Bad customers. Incredibly bad economic times. Overhyped, underdelivering
technologies. An awareness that picking the right technical skills to study
itself is something of a crap-shoot, and ending up at the top of _this_ heap
may leave you poorly positioned for the next, or at best, stuck deciding
what's worth studying.

Youth has enthusiasm.

Age has experience.

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ankurdhama
Because they don't know that in IT world all the new stuff is just new names
for the old stuff and they think that they know the latest and greatest thing
:)

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Piskvorrr
I'd say it's just the hubris of youth, and not limited to programmers. "Meh,
what do the old geezers know? I'm here to disrupt eeeverything, because I know
best, and I know that I know it! (...) Oh wait: did I repeat most of their
mistakes?"

