
Old Geek - kungfudoi
https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/201x/2016/09/14/Old-Geek
======
threepipeproblm
I just turned 40, and I do feel fortunate that I look young. But then I was
also recently hired, by a 70 year old who is still himself programming for
hire, to make some quirky database code work .

Perhaps this is an unpopular sentiment, but after 33 years of programming I
have been observing more and more how many elements of a supposedly hyper-
rational field function like religious beliefs or memes. I suspect that one
reason people prefer working with young programmers is -- sometimes -- that
they don't want push back on the beliefs that are underpinning their
enterprises. To take a few simple examples, people with a lot at stake don't
necessarily want to be told that something will probably take 3x longer than
they think. Or that there are some philosophical issues at play in their
strategy.

A truth that can hurt: people generally only consult nerds when they believe
they have no other choice. To many people this means they only want
programmers for "code monkey" style coding, i.e. I think there may actually be
preference for inexperience in the wider world.

I'm sure age will take it's toll eventually, but in my case there is no doubt
in my mind I write better code now than, say, 10 or 15 years ago.

Fortunately, there's a solution: freelance and work for people without these
biases. It seems like there is no shortage once you leave groupthink
environments behind.

~~~
rplst8
I'd echo this, and while this may sound curmudgeonly, too many people either
want easy solutions or have shiny new object syndrome. These traits often
flourish in the software industry because newly available "solutions" present
themselves faster than any one person can even learn their names.

To use an analogy, I refuse to believe the roads would be safer with a bunch
of drivers all learning while they go.

~~~
sverige
Yet now we're breathlessly anticipating the new age of self-driving vehicles
that will be learning as they go....

~~~
StavrosK
Everyone always learns as they go. Clearly, the GP meant "that start out
without knowing to drive".

~~~
BatFastard
But there is a difference between learning as you go from a point experience.
For someone with no experience, you make a lot of silly errors, or at least
errors that more experienced people know not to make.

Its not like many of the new languages are THAT much different. 90% of work is
still done in C, C++ and Java

------
jwr
There seem to be more articles about age popping up on HN lately. I find this
both weird and disconcerting. As I wrote in a comment in another thread:

> This is idiotic. People over 40 trade one set of skills for another (source:
> I'm over 40). You lose short-term memory, can't juggle too many things
> simultaneously, and aren't always up to date on every latest fad. But what
> you gain is fantastically valuable: intuition, abstract thinking, systems
> thinking, ability to detect patterns in large systems, ability to notice
> that certain problems have been solved in a different field, and lots more.
> As I grow older, I notice these changes, and while I do regret not being
> able to remember IP addresses after switching to a different window (get a
> larger monitor, or just copy&paste), I am very happy with the overall shift.

To put this in other words, as I age, I found that yes, I do have less ability
to do brilliant-late-night-ninja-coding stunts, but overall what I gained
translates into Getting Things Done. Which is why I find this ageism trend
mindboggling: is there a CEO out there that doesn't want his company to Get
Things Done?

To give a tangible practical example: I just wrote and launched PartsBox.io
([https://partsbox.io/](https://partsbox.io/)) as a side project. I could only
do it in the time constraints involved because I knew which shortcuts I could
take and which code I should not write. My 25-year old self would likely have
written brilliant ninja code (that no one would ever see), but would never
have gotten the project shipped.

~~~
dunkelheit
I am under 30 but ageism scares the shit out of me.

I love to build things and I am not keen on sliding into a management
position. But this becomes the easiest career path once your soft skills start
to increase to the detriment of raw coding skills.

On the other hand I've seen enough engineers with decades of experience who
said no to going into management and who are now basically irrelevant.

Both these outcomes are scary but they seem to be the defaults for someone who
goes with the flow.

~~~
henrik_w
I just turned 50, and I still code and still love it. Like other people here
have pointed out, keeping your skills up-to-date is key, and making a
conscious decision to stay coding instead drifting into management.

A good way to stay relevant is to change jobs now and then (maybe every 5
years or so), and also using your own time to learn new things.

~~~
dunkelheit
Yes, definitely possible, kudos for pulling it off! But it requires careful
long-term proactive decisions and actions. Which is not what most humans are
particularly good at. That's why I used the word "scary".

When you are a junior engineer you just crank out code and the level and
employability of your skills automagically increase. But after some time this
free lunch quietly stops. You suddenly have to manage your career.

~~~
uola
Right. People should be less concerned with competing with people in their 20s
and more concerned with how they are going to keep up with the other people
their age who instead of doing fun, hacker, startup stuff and chasing money
spent their time being the "stupidest" person in the room and learning the
(an) industry.

------
dstroot
I am 54, a former CTO, CIO and current CTO and love to code. I believe "now"
is the most exciting time in tech ever (and I started on mainframes, went
through client server, n tier, web and whatever we are now). I believe open
source is truly changing the world in a massively positive way. I'm sure
someone younger could do my job, but I think "perspective" matters. I love
learning and just moved a bunch of production workload to Kubernetes. Not sure
exactly why this touched me the way it did but I dread the day I hang up my
spurs. The industry just gets more and more interesting to me.

~~~
dookahku
I will confess to being cynical but they need more engineers than C*Os.

My time is almost over.

~~~
mooreds
Ah, but do they need more junior developers than senior developers?
Senior/lead devs who can take a project and execute the whole thing, including
leading team members, are very valuable.

~~~
dookahku
Why hire someone with 10+ years of experience over all when we can hire
someone with 3-5 years of experience in our tech stack?

Or so it's been explained to me.

------
jv22222
I no longer think of myself as having an age.

I moved the decimal point one place to the left and now I have a version:

I am version 4.7

Apparently by the time I'm version 6.5 my codebase will be a little bloated.

\---

On another note, this age subject has come up a few times:

Programmers: Before you turn 40, get a plan B (2009)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9361580](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9361580)

Silicon Valley’s Dark Secret: It’s All About Age (2010)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9710936](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9710936)

I also wish I could copy paste this comment I already wrote:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9362508](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9362508)

~~~
DonHopkins
Are your even years stable, and your odd years full of surprises?

~~~
Bartweiss
Around Version 3.0, many people produce a lightweight side project. By Version
5.0 they're about ready to spin it off as its own product.

~~~
DonHopkins
"Don't trust any version over 3.0." -Jack Weinberg

------
micaksica
I am not really "old" (ie over 40), but I have interviewed older candidates
for some technical roles at very different companies, and I've found there are
either old people who believe they know better at everything whose skills have
not improved much since their early 30s, and then old people who stay up to
date on technologies, trends, and realize that programming is a field you
never really ever master with time or age; it shifts too much to be able to
ever fully grasp it.

The "old" people who are curmudgeonly and stuck on older technical stacks are
the ones who don't fare well. The ones who are current in skillset never seem
to have an issue and generally impress the people they meet, as they bring
both experience and current technical knowledge to the table. Anecdotally, I
would say 8/10 of the 40+ crowd I have interviewed fall into the "old
technical stack" / "i know better" crowd, and I think these are the ones that
poison the well for the good guys.

I am beginning to believe that the trick to software engineering as a career
vs. management is to stay current above all else. If you let yourself become
obsolesced, you will be thrown aside like an old PowerBook. That's the reality
of the technology industry and has little to do with age.

~~~
blazespin
Yeah, for the vast majority of engineering programming is like selling shoes.
You just need about 4 years experience and you pretty much know it all.
Certain skill sets are great for older folks though. Security, for example.
You want to work with someone who has a long track record of being
trustworthy.

That being said, there is something compelling about an older engineer who
constantly re-invents himself with the latest technology.

~~~
micaksica
> Yeah, for the vast majority of engineering programming is like selling
> shoes. You just need about 4 years experience and you pretty much know it
> all.

That's the point I'm trying not to make. Are you building a startup that's
effectively a CRUD app? If so, sure, that's pretty much all you need and is
why coder schools have become so prevalent - they get you to a practicing
point that covers the bases of most small websites and very, very basic
startups.

Age and experience brings with it something vital: the ability to build long
term pattern recognition of technology business cycles, the "all is old is new
again", the ways that novel technologies may fall like their predecessors.
This is not something you learn in a CS program or even a few years out of
college. It's something you only learn by playing with tens of languages and
mastering six or seven over decades, by constantly learning, by being part of
those business cycles. This skillset is often discredited and is enormously
valuable, but I believe it requires a tireless passion for novelty and modern
technique to become a multiplier on skill.

~~~
AstralStorm
Experience is more important if you are actually developing algorithms rather
that making another app. It takes time and practice of genius to get a handle
on required mathematics for AI, adaptive systems or advanced data structures.
It is no accident that mathematicians are divided into super young genius and
old bearded wizard camps.

------
blazespin
I am afraid the story is total and complete crap. The reality is that Amazon
is Logan's run. Yes, PE engineers are old and yes they are a tiny percentage
of the total army. What does that tell you? It tells you that they keep a tiny
number around to make engineers believe there is a path. The reality is though
that path is only for a very very select few..

<\- Ex Amazon engineer.

~~~
blazespin
Wow, I'm so amused at the downvotes. It's like a completely and absolute
denial of reality. If you imagine for a moment that PE role is a realistic
path for a typical engineer at amazon you are in total fantasy world.

~~~
eps
Downvotes are for your "complete crap" remark, which is unnecessarily rude.

~~~
blazespin
Was it? The reality is that you have someone who has benefited from having
either a hugely beneficial nurtured environment or perfect DNA trying to
espouse that this is actually realistic for all engineers at amazon. It isn't!
Trust me! Amazon grinds you as much as possible. If you imagine for a moment
that you are a typical engineer at amazon and your ass will age like fine wine
you are being totally and utterly manipulated.

That being said, there are ways to succeed as you age. Working at amazon is
not one of them. Specializing in engineering areas that require a track record
of deliverables is. It's Bayesian probability. That is what your advantage is
if you are old.

Being trustworthy helps in things like security. Young kids between the age of
16-25 are freakin random and they might be the next snowden for all a manager
knows. Older people who have never done anything irresponsible in their life
can benefit here.

Also, leveraging technologies in your resume that are once again fashionable.
Devops in the cloud, neural networks in deep learning, etc.

Is any of this fair? Of course the F not. But neither is being discriminated
against because you're old.

~~~
PhasmaFelis
No one's disagreeing with your point. But when you open with unnecessary rude
snarkiness, people will dismiss you before you even get to your point.
Presentation is important.

------
gavanwoolery
I hate to say it, but I am approaching 35 and already feel too "old" for my
own good.

Many of my bosses have been 5+ years younger than me.

I am eyeballing jobs that are paying exactly what I got paid 8 years ago, just
because they are local/family friendly.

I am not experienced enough with management or executive roles to take one.

I am too much of a generalist to get a senior role in a given field, except
the one field I specialize in, which is fairly useless when it comes to paid
jobs.

I'm not a competitive coder, but I can meet any reasonable deadline.
Unfortunately, the trend is now to value the former much more than the latter
because it is easier to measure in the interview process.

The majority of jobs out there (frankly) do not require much skill for
functional results, so there is someone out there 10 years younger than me who
can put in more time for less pay.

Additionally, there are people with 2 or 3 years of industry programming
experience making over $250k. It sets a weird baseline that makes it
impossible to scale up for more experienced coders.

The most elite people in the valley struck it rich fresh out of college. These
are the people who dictate the flow of cash in the software world. What reason
do they have to believe that an old software engineer is valuable, even as
they themselves grow older?

I don't expect the world to be fair. But I feel like there has to be some sort
of value in experience?

------
qwtel
I'm starting a new software consultancy that's hiring 40+ coders exclusively,
at below market value, then leases them back to the companies that just got
rid of them. The only difference is that I hide them away somewhere, call it
"untapped talent" or something that doesn't give away the age and show up at
meetings instead of them, with my 26 years and sneakers and a hoodie. Call it
job market arbitrage.

But something doesn't add up here, does it?

~~~
tbenbrahim
if a 40+ developer (who ships product and gets things done rather than a
"coder" as you refer to them), works for less than market rate, there is a
reason, and usually not a good one. This is not something to base a company
on. Most of us are working at well above market rates, not in Silicon Vally
(there is serious software in the energy, medical, financial, etc... field
being written elsewhere) and are not in the job market.

~~~
vonmoltke
> if a 40+ developer (who ships product and gets things done rather than a
> "coder" as you refer to them), works for less than market rate, there is a
> reason, and usually not a good one.

I'm only 36, but my personal experience would bias me to assume it is because
the companies that would pay market rate aren't willing to even talk to them.
It's hella illegal, but I would not be surprised if a company basing their
product on technologies that are only 3 - 4 years old is silently, perhaps
even unconsciously, ignoring resumes from people with 15+ years of work
experience, even if they have the experience in those recent technologies.

------
pwinnski
Whenever this topic comes up, I see a rush to deny that ageism is a problem in
the industry, or that it isn't ageism _alone_ but bad choices made by certain
people, or...

It would bother me, but I know that ageism is one form of discrimination that
eventually hits us all. Beware, young people. The rationalization you do today
will be used against you in a couple of decades. And you'll know better then,
but you're not listening to the gray-hairs today, and probably neither will
the people refusing to hire you then.

Fortunately, some companies treat their gray-hairs better than others, and
while you'd think startups were the best route of all, since no boss can
refuse to hire you then, it turns out that ageism is pretty widespread, and it
can be hard to get funding for a startup, and even hard to land customers if
you're the public face of a startup.

Every year, we all get a bit closer to it happening to us.

~~~
gaius
It boggles my mind how many people seem to believe that sexism is the
industry's fault but ageism is the victim's fault.

~~~
gohrt
Who believes that? Maybe the people who believe that sexism is the industry's
fault also believe ageism is the victim's fault?

~~~
gaius
Surely they are both the industry's fault?

------
niftich
I chuckled at:

> _If you help build something important and impactful, call it X, it 's easy
> to slip into year after year of being the world’s greatest expert on X, and
> when X isn't important and impactful any more, you're in a bad place._

He, of course, was co-author of the XML spec.

~~~
SwellJoe
Gosling, who he quotes at the top of the article, worked on NeWS, a primary
competitor to X. And, I imagine he knows plenty of people who literally worked
on X, since he worked at multiple major UNIX vendors during that period.

~~~
cpr
X is also Java in Gosling's case. ;-)

~~~
DonHopkins
And X is also Emacs [1] and Andrew [2] in Gosling's case. ;-)

For Tim Bray, X is short for XML.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gosling_Emacs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gosling_Emacs)

[2]
[https://www.cmu.edu/news/archive/2009/November/nov5_goslingr...](https://www.cmu.edu/news/archive/2009/November/nov5_goslingreflectsonjava.shtml)

------
johnwheeler
I don't like reading articles like these. This article was the impetus I
needed to create [https://oldgeekjobs.com/](https://oldgeekjobs.com/) just
now.

I'm 37 and just recently phone interviewed for a job with two twenty-
somethings. I felt I got discriminated against not so much because of my age,
but because I just wasn't into the same things as them and wouldn't have been
a good 'cultural fit'. My age played a factor in that respect.

If you're cool working with old hackers, post your jobs on there for free.
I'll circle back around tomorrow and make it classier.

~~~
omouse
Looks like someone posted on it: [https://software-dev-
group.org/2016/09/15/old-geek-jobs-figh...](https://software-dev-
group.org/2016/09/15/old-geek-jobs-fighting-ageism-industry/)

I'm almost 30 and I'm starting to grow concerned about ageism.

~~~
johnwheeler
That's cool - thank you

------
muzster
That old meme again..

Some Stats from 2015 :-

Median Age / Profession

42.1 Computer systems analysts

44.7 Information security analysts

43.1 Computer programmers

39.7 Software developers, applications and systems software

35.9 Web developers

40.5 Computer support specialists

47.0 Database administrators

41.2 Network and computer systems administrators

41.6 Computer network architects

41.2 Computer occupations, all other

Source :
[http://www.bls.gov/cps/demographics.htm](http://www.bls.gov/cps/demographics.htm)

~~~
tbenbrahim
Some people think Silicon Valley represents the entire United States, and that
software development only happens in Silicon Valley, hence the myopic views
and the memes.

------
willvarfar
Hmm, a depressing reminder of my own predicament: I hitting that midlife
midcareer crisis point...

I'm forty this year and still coding. I dabbled in mgmt in my early thirties
and didn't enjoy it, so stuck at coding.

I am extremely up-to-date and well-versed in everything modern - like most of
us here, its my consuming passion too - but I'm completely underwhelmed by the
JS frameworks so I can seem a bit "not with it" perhaps?

I do a lot of architecture - I've been a chief architect for big subsystems on
a small OS, even. Not that I seem to have any impact or sway on mgmt, who keep
repeating the technical mistakes I keep pointing out anyway..

So here's the nub: if I moved on, I doubt I'd be replaced. Companies don't
feel they _need_ people like me. And they can have someone young, cheap,
without family and without work-life-balance and without strong opinions to
point out technical flaws in plans etc. They'd all probably be relieved!

Leaving us "old geeks" unemployable in anywhere near the quantities soon
available...

~~~
misja111
If you are up-to-date and coding is your passion, then you should have no
trouble to get a job, regardless of your age. Actually, for many positions
your experience is an advantage. Some teams do need people with solid opinions
to keep their younger colleagues on the rails.

------
bootload
_" There are all these lit­tle com­mu­ni­ties at Google: Gay­gler­s,
Jew­gler­s, and my fa­vorite, the Grey­gler­s; that’s the on­ly T-shirt I took
with me and still wear. The Grey­glers are led by Vint Cer­f, "_

I see a lot of these articles, which I like reading btw, about technicians,
too old to do the work. [0] Let's turn this idea on it's head: What about _"
Management, period"_. Management itself a big source of company inefficiency.
[1]

What technology is being created to push down the cost of executive
compensation in buiness?

[0] _" Just 120 of the Audi factory’s best employees qualify to work on the
prestigious R8 assembly line. More than half of R8 workers are over 40. It is
said that the easiest way to spot them is to look for the gray hair. The
factory calls them “silverliners.”"_ ~
[http://natgeotv.com/ca/megafactories/audi-
facts](http://natgeotv.com/ca/megafactories/audi-facts)

[1] [http://www.nytimes.com/topic/subject/executive-
pay](http://www.nytimes.com/topic/subject/executive-pay)

~~~
zackbrown
> What technology is being created to push down the cost of executive
> compensation in buiness?

I imagine this technology would be difficult to market and thus difficult to
sustain, given that the prospective customers (i.e. decision-makers who
control companies' funds) would have personal negative incentives against
purchasing it.

This reminds me of some friends whose startup's product was software to make
lawyers more time-efficient with (billable) administrative tasks. It turns out
customers don't come banging down your door to buy a product that 'helps' them
make less money.

~~~
bootload
_" given that the prospective customers (i.e. decision-makers who control
companies' funds) would have personal negative incentives against purchasing
it."_

That is something I would believe, push-back from existing people in
companies. What about new companies selling products? (remember ways of making
money in SW: internal services, contract/consulting and product)

------
littlethrowaway
This did strike a chord. I'm 37. I've been programming since leaving
university. I had a stint of about 6 years in the middle of my career where I
stagnated. While it was fun (I did a lot of climbing, biking, caving etc.), it
was hard getting out of that hole, and I'm glad to be out.

Anyway, I'm now travelling for a year (my partner made me quit my job ;) which
has been lots of fun. I've caught up on a lot of books, playing with elixir,
sharpening tools. But, I'm wondering what to do when I go back home, and
finding it hard to decide. I already have an offer, and I'm not particularly
worried about having work, but more about having the _right_ work. I'm not
sure how many more options to change I'll have. Coupled to that, I'd like to
work on projects which I feel are doing something useful for society.

Options:

1\. Work remotely for a company I've worked for before. Should be decent cash.
Codebase is horrible legacy stuff (but improving). Just me and another (more
junior) developer. 2\. Work for a pretty professional company in town.
Excellent excellent team, I'd learn heaps, but it'd be just straight business
work (not ticking the "useful to society" box.

I have a couple of options in both of those categories (I think ;). I've been
stung before being a solo developer and I'm not that excited about being the
most senior on the team. I'm an OK developer, but I know there are lots
smarter, and I like learning from others.

So decisions decisions. It feels to me the older I get the fewer of these
types of decisions I want to mess up.

~~~
beachstartup
go with the job that offers a better working environment and/or work life
balance.

the technical work itself is what you make of it, even learning by replacing
legacy stuff with newer better stuff is always a possibility. choose to use
technology that is interesting to you. spend personal time catching up on it
if it's impossible to do 'on the clock'. "garbage in, garbage out", basically.

however, the conditions in which you do the work in are not under your control
and carry the heaviest personal cost.

~~~
littlethrowaway
Thanks for the reply.

This is the thing, the remote environment would be entirely under my control
and I think the work-life balance would be fine.

The non-remote job would be more challenging work, probably a bit more
corporate & rigid, but have a killer team to work with and learn from.

I'm with you on the "learning by replacingn legacy stuff with newer stuff" ...
that train is already in motion and there's certainly a lot you can learn by
doing that properly.

Thanks for the thoughts, I'll add them to the melting pot.

------
koliber
There's a contest to find a hidden treasure in a forest. All that is given is
a short description of the place where the treasure lies, and a couple of
hints on how to get there.

A young kid, in tip-top shape stands next to an overweight graybeard. He
snickers at the older fellow, confident that he will find the treasure first.
The whistle blows, and off they go running. Or rather, the younger fellow goes
running. The older guy stretches a bit more, buys a bottle of water, and
huddles off into the woods. He walks at a fair pace, not really breaking a
sweat, as he knows it's going to get hot in an hour, as the sun hits the
middle of the sky. He's been in these woods plenty of times in the past thirty
years.

The young kids runs here, runs there, looking for anything that may resemble
the clues he was given. He is fast. He has the latest gear and newest gadget.
However, he's not really sure where to begin.

The old guy has a hunch where to go. He knows where the blueberry bushes grow
that were mentioned in the clue. He knows where the sunny clearing with the
three rocks is. It takes him a bit of time, but he is going in the right
direction. He rests in the shade for a bit and hydrates when the sun is at its
harshest.

The young fellow is dehydrated. He's run over 12 km, he thinks he saw some of
the mentioned clues, but he's not sure. He needs to get back to town to get a
drink of water.

The afternoon sets in. The young fellow is covering a lot of ground, but is
not rally getting anywhere. The graybeard, meanwhile, has found the little
pond and the hollow trunk that holds the little treasure chest. It takes him
some time to walk back to the finish line.

When doing anything, there is the experience and velocity aspect. If you're
running fast but don't know which way is right, you will make many mistakes.
Your speed will allow you to recover quickly. If you're experienced, you will
likely plan better and your slower progress will be in a more correct
direction.

What is better? I wish we could all be spry 90-year-old veterans with the
speed and stamina of 18-year-olds. For most of us, it does not work that way.
Different projects require different skills. More established companies don't
want to risk key project on inexperienced talent. Young startups don't really
know what is going to work, so making lots of mistakes and recovering quickly
may be an advantage. It's getting the right mix of people for the job that is
the key.

~~~
mixmastamyk
Reminds me of the tortoise and the hare.

------
acdha
One option more people should consider: work for the government. There are
strong legal and union protections against discrimination in many areas
including age and most agencies are both desperately in need of good technical
staff and have challenges and requirements which are more complicated than the
average startup so your greater experience (both on the job and in life) is a
selling point rather than a drawback.

[https://pages.18f.gov/joining-18f/](https://pages.18f.gov/joining-18f/)
[https://www.usds.gov/join](https://www.usds.gov/join)
[https://usajobs.gov](https://usajobs.gov)

~~~
mixmastamyk
Do they eliminate based on degree? I had this experience recently when
applying to space and defense work.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Do they eliminate based on degree?

Public sector work sometimes does, but lots of times has "or equivalent
experience", and much more often than private sector work has clear and
objective definitions of what is the "equivalent" alternative for particular
purposes.

------
yitchelle
Reading the article feels like I am talking to my old neighbour who likes tell
me about his good old days, which is a good thing.

Anyway, that advice at the end of the article is BS. Being older does not stop
you from coding, and it does not stop you from being an engineer. Engineering
is not age dependent, but practicing it as a job may be.

~~~
watt
Well, the point is if you still want to be able to get bills paid. And if you
are not inventor of XML, or inventor of Java, you have to keep your eyes open.

~~~
eternalban
Seriously. Gosling says "al­most ev­ery old friend of mine is screwed", and it
should be a safe assumption that he bonded with equally smart and talented
engineers at places such as Sun Microsystems. It's unreal.

------
mobiuscog
Experience used to be valuable.

These days, re-inventing the wheel and blogging (writing books, speaking at
events) about how you solved 'your' problems, are the new way.

There are many very intelligent younger people (as there have always been),
but most of them, brought up on the shoulders of giant, are no longer
interested in what those giants did and think they can fix the world on their
own.

 _shrug_

------
jonathanedwards
Let's put our money where our mouth is. I believe it is legal in the US to
hire only people over 40. GeezerSoft - "because old age and treachery will
always beat youth and exuberance"

------
bandrami
I just turned 40 and just got hired. I think the big difference between now
and my last hiring in the oughts is that I was able to take a much more active
role in my own career-path decisions (this one is interesting, that one used
the word "rock star" so I won't bother, etc.). Part of that is because I'm now
married and somewhat more financially secure, but, hey: that in itself is part
of being older.

Now, I'm not a coder, except to the extent that every sysadmin is, and my
field's definition of "output" is different (and for that matter ops in
general is grayer than dev). But just personally I feel a confidence in my
skills and experience that I didn't have even a decade ago at 30. And also I
seem to have a longer attention span than I used to (9am HN commenting
notwithstanding). I have a much better sense of how long an implementation
will take, what its blockers might be, etc.

IOW I'm liking work at 40, at least personally.

~~~
dpina
Good to see another sysadmin input on this thread. Any bits that you would
advise us younger (not that much, 30 yrs old) sysadmins about what to expect
from the future?

~~~
bandrami
So my biggest bit of advice is to get out of the tech sector as much as
possible. One of the great things about ops is that there literally is not an
industry that doesn't employ us. I've worked for non-profits, education, farms
(you'd be amazed some of the data needs agribusiness has), and now aerospace.
I've even gigged for food service (a local brewery paid me in beer...)

The advantage of this is that gets you out of some of the myopia that the tech
sector has a tendency to instill, as well as broadening your geographical
opportunities beyond the few tech hot spots. It also teaches you the three
most important words a sysadmin has to learn to say: "I don't know". A
sysadmin who can't say that immediately when it's true is going to have
problems (after all ops is about 85% reading documentation), and figuring out
how to get data from a barn to a datacenter will teach you to say it quickly.

Another piece of advice: if you haven't already, work in a datacenter, at
least once, for at least a year, before you quit in disgust (everybody does).
No datacenter sysadmin is happy, but it's a huge resume buff and it teaches
you a lot.

~~~
detaro
> _No datacenter sysadmin is happy, but it 's a huge resume buff and it
> teaches you a lot._

Why is that? What kind of valuable experiences are you thinking of?

------
lubonay
Robert C. Martin sometimes shares an observation in his talks - it's not that
the industry is trying to avoid old programmers, it's just that they are
orders of magnitude rarer than the young ones due to the exponential dev
population growth.

~~~
jacalata
For that to be a complete explanation, you need to ignore or flat out
disbelieve everyone who talks about having a harder time getting a job once
they seem old.

------
ori_b
> _I’m one. We’re not ex­act­ly com­mon on the ground; my pro­fes­sion,
> ap­par­ent­ly not con­tent with hav­ing ex­clud­ed a whole gen­der, is
> most­ly do­ing with­out the ser­vices of a cou­ple of gen­er­a­tions._

The bulk of the problem is that the software field has been growing
exponentially for a long time. If you double in size in 2 years, and the bulk
of the new guys are actually new to the workforce (as seems to be the norm),
then instead of a nice even distribution of ages, you'll end up with nearly
half of your workforce less than 2 years out of school.

This isn't really a solvable problem, short of waiting for the size of the
software industry to level out, and then waiting for the younguns to grow up.

I'm not saying that there's no discrimination -- I have no data -- but it's
likely to be less rampant than this makes out.

------
stcredzero
_40-plus wom­en are ba­si­cal­ly not em­ploy­able in the technolo­gy sec­tor._

If this isn't prejudice, I don't know what is. It's not, "40-plus wom­en are
employable if they are competent." It's that being a 40-plus woman is enough
of a signal, people feel justified enough to "err on the side of false
negative." Really, how many 40-plus women have most 20-somethings actually
encountered as coders in the workplace? How many 40-plus women have most
20-somethings actually encountered as managers in the workplace? I suspect
this prejudice comes from outside the workplace.

~~~
pessimizer
Exactly. People are not avoiding hiring 40+ year old women because of bad
experiences with the work of 40 year old women, they're not hiring 40+ year
old women because they don't like women, and they don't like people over 40.

~~~
stcredzero
I think it has to do with the intersection in the Venn diagram, not so much
the big circles.

------
mixmastamyk
Wow, if Bray and Gosling are feeling the pinch, what chance do the rest of us
have?

Remember when graybeards were coveted for fellowship positions and authored
the most important books? That was only fifteen years ago or so.

------
fsloth
Somehow I feel the key to staying relevant is not programming skills but
choosing a practical domain where the software is implemented, and becoming an
expert in it. Mine's CAD. We have ton of older people, and no age
discrimination that I can tell.

I'm not sure if this works in other fields. Probably in lots of niches.

------
Annatar
One of the biggest issues I see with this mentality going forward is

a) lack of mentors for younger generations;

b) repeating the same mistakes our generation made.

a) is bad. b) is worse.

a) and b) combined lead to fads in which one burns tremendous amounts of time
figuring out what it is and how it works, only to become obsolete by the time
one masters it.

Old people like me pick their technology very carefully, because they've
already burned exorbitant amounts of time mastering all kinds of technology
fads during their lifetime, only to find that most of them don't fix, or make
the problems even worse.

In plain English: we reject 99% of the fads out there because we can tell from
experience what will work and what won't, and what the challenges and
pathologies will be if we deploy on that particular fad. We don't reject fads
a priori just because it is something new, but on the very simple metric:

could it be as bulletproof as possible, so I don't get a call at two o' clock
in the morning?

Yes: continue research. Attempt breakage. Re-evaluate based on the results of
breakage.

No: reject.

Where we, the old people failed: I take on apprentices. Most of my peers do
not. That is why we end up with, for example,

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ms3EifxZopg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ms3EifxZopg)

...where a few lines of AWK code would do. And my peers are nowadays almost
embarrassed to even mention such robust technology, instead of actively
teaching and promoting it:

[http://dtrace.org/blogs/ahl/2016/08/02/i-love-go-i-hate-
go/#...](http://dtrace.org/blogs/ahl/2016/08/02/i-love-go-i-hate-
go/#comment-56586)

this is where we failed: to teach. To take on apprentices. This is why
humanity keeps repeating the same mistakes over and over again, and nowhere
does that appear to be so acute as in information technology.

We can do better. Take on apprentices, and have them commit to teaching others
once they themselves become masters.

I don't mean casual mentorship; I mean a formal apprenticeship. Yes, that
means you Bryan, and you Adam. And you Jerry. And you Max. And you Robert. You
know who you are.

~~~
throwanem
> I don't mean casual mentorship; I mean a formal apprenticeship.

This is an intriguing idea. But our culture doesn't offer much in the way of a
framework for it. Will you expand upon what you mean by it, and how you've
made it work for you and others?

~~~
Annatar
I arrange my work spaces such that there is always a chair and ample desk room
for anyone to bring their laptop over, plop themselves next to me, and start
talking to me about the problem they want to solve.

I've also planned an apprenticeship program, where I had pupils formally
assigned to me to mentor. I'd start them while they were still at the
university doing their bachelors or masters. Usually they are new to UNIX, so
the first thing I have them do is read the entire manual page for tcsh and
zsh. Then move on to teaching them how to shell script, then how to program in
AWK. Once they're past that, I move on to teaching them C.

For shell programming, I tutor them one on one, covering looping, input,
syntax, interface design with getopts). I teach them why having ".sh", ".pl",
".py" or any other extension on an executable is a bad idea on UNIX, and there
I cover what it actually means for a file to be executable on UNIX. I teach
them about the runtime linker. I teach them about compiling and linking, about
how functions map to symbols in an ELF executable. I teach them about ELF.
About process spawning, context switching, high interrupt counts, 32- versus
64-bit code, instruction encoding. About what being a zombie process actually
means, how they become such, how they get adopted by init(1M).

Eventually they hit deeper and deeper problems, so I inevitably end up
teaching debugging and OS programming.

For teaching them how to program in AWK, I have them go through all the
chapters and all the exercises in the Gray AWK book by Aho, Weinberger, and
Kernighan. Then I help them with the actual real world problems they are
attempting to solve with AWK, by showing them how to do it and explaining how
it works. This is usually the time when I cover all the formal algorithms
they're supposed to be learning at the university but aren't: stacks, queues,
linked lists, doubly linked lists, sorting, pointers and pointer arithmetic,
topological sorting.

For teaching them C, I have them go through the ANSI C programming language
book, 2nd edition, and then cover anything that they don't understand with
examples. Then I have them follow that up with the Advanced C programming by
Example book. Then I cover dbx(1), gdb(1), and mdb(1) with them (what I know
about mdb(1) anyway, and I touch upon kdb(1)). Throughout all of this, I cover
cpp(1), make(1S), gmake(1), and m4, as well as lex(1) and yacc(1).

If I am forced by circumstance to teach them on GNU/Linux, I constantly and
consistently pound it into my students' heads never to use GNU constructs or
GNU specific features; by the time I'm done, they are able to write clean,
portable programs in shell which work on any UNIX-like platform _without any
modification_ , and ditto for C programs. I purposely teach them to stay the
hell away from bash(1), and use either the original Bourne or Korn shells to
program.

If they are apprenticed to me for a long enough time, I will also cover
complete UNIX system, network, and security administration (up to and
including locking down the system and configuring the firewall and IPsec); by
the time I cover the material, any of my students should be able to take on
and pass a Solaris system administration exams and get certified. And with
that knowledge and some shallow preparation, they can then easily ace the
redhat Enterprise Linux certification exams.

Next, I cover SQL and database administration. Usually the places I work /
consult at have Oracle, so I teach them how to administer an Oracle database,
show them where the documentation can be found, and generally prepare them to
take the Oracle database administration exam. If we have it, I will also cover
PostgreSQL, and I cover SQLite. Finally, I show them all the bugs and all the
issues in MySQL with a warning to stay the hell away from it and never use it
for projects. By the time I'm done with them, they are comfortable taking on a
database administrator's job or programming applications in PL/SQL inside of
the Oracle database. And where there is Oracle, sooner or later, there is
Automatic Storage Manager (ASM), so covering that inevitably leads to covering
storage area network administration on the OS side, which ties into their UNIX
administration I taught them earlier.

By the time I'm done with them, they are able to comfortably program
applications in shell, AWK, or C, in addition to being able to administer UNIX
systems and relational databases.

From that point on, they have enough knowledge to master pretty much anything
in computer science.

------
unexistance
from [http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-08/silicon-
va...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-08/silicon-valley-s-job-
hungry-say-we-re-not-to-old-for-this)

“Younger people are just smarter.” - Mark

not wiser :D

My view is you need to be smart for the short-term solution / problem &
unencumbered by obsolete boundaries / limit.

You need to be wise for the long-term stuff since it's human nature to repeat
the same mistakes & not learning from it

p/s: I'm young

~~~
bootload
_" “Younger people are just smarter.” - Mark /n not wiser :D"_

When I read statements like that I think, 'optimised' for the given problem(s)
at hand. Problems change over time.

~~~
unexistance
and yet they're actually stay the same

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12503764](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12503764)

> the ability to build long term pattern recognition of technology business
> cycles, the "all is old is new again"

------
roschdal
The next presidential candidates in USA are 68 and 70 years old, while humble
programmers are too old after 40 years of age.

~~~
jpindar
And from what I hear, the presidency requires long hours, time spent away from
one's family, and a relatively low salary - all things that older people
supposedly can't handle.

------
Stratoscope
I wonder if I'll be the oldest one in this thread? I'm 64, turning 65 in
January. Been programming since 1968.

I don't really like the term "coding", because when I got started, a coder was
pretty close to the bottom rung. You had Systems Analysts who wrote
specifications, Programmers who turned those specs into flowcharts, Coders who
translated the flowcharts into actual code on coding forms [1], Keypunch
Operators who punched that code onto punch cards, and finally the true high
priests, the Computer Operators who ran your batch jobs and gave you back the
printouts.

At least that's what they told us the serious enterprise software companies
did. In truth, we were a bunch of hackers who punched our own programs on
Teletype machines.

Later I got into writing DOS applications and TSRs and custom BIOSes, and then
Windows programming starting with version 1.0. Some application programming,
some language design, and some systems hacking like figuring out how to hook
into the Windows font rendering before they had scalable fonts, so I could
render Adobe's Type 1 fonts behind Windows' back. Worked on Visual Basic and
created the VBX interface.

10-15 years later, I switched to web app development and had a pretty good run
with that. Helped develop jQuery and taught a lot of people how to use it, got
into GIS and mapmaking, did a bunch of election results maps for Google.

Then a funny thing happened: I got into VR, and it turned out all my Windows
experience was relevant again. I was talking with a VR startup today and the
CEO said "I thought you were just a VR developer - but you've done all this
Windows systems hacking too? Maybe you can help us!" (They are trying to do
some tricky DirectX system integration.) And the VR work also gave me a chance
to get up to speed on Android and iOS development.

They say to leave everything more than 10 years ago off your resume so people
won't realize how old you are. But if I did that, this VR company wouldn't
have noticed my Windows experience from back in the day. And if you meet me
you'll figure out my age soon enough!

At this point I've programmed in about 40 languages and a bunch of different
platforms. If you ask me what my greatest strength is, maybe it's that I'm
comfortable jumping around all sorts of languages and OSes, and I can pretty
much always figure out a way to hook them together.

But I envy people who have become world-class experts in one important thing.
One friend is a data scientist who does everything in Python. Another is an
iOS expert who knows everything there is to know about Objective-C and never
wants to use another language.

So maybe jumping around so much is my great weakness too. When I talk with
companies, they are often looking for someone who is the best at one
particular thing. It may be data science, Android or iOS development, web
front end, or whatever, but they want that one specialty. They may talk about
"full stack" developers, but it tends to be a pretty specific "full" stack.

What is the most productive role for someone like me who has worked on so many
different kinds of systems that I've lost count?

[1] To get a taste of the old days, search for
[https://www.google.com/search?q=fortran+coding+form](https://www.google.com/search?q=fortran+coding+form)
and you'll find some FORTRAN coding forms like this one:
[http://org.coloradomesa.edu/~lpayne/fall%202014/CS1/coding%2...](http://org.coloradomesa.edu/~lpayne/fall%202014/CS1/coding%20plan.pdf)
\- print it on some 8.5x14 paper, sharpen your pencil, and start coding!

~~~
FuckOffNeemo
I hope your story isn't or rather doesn't become anecdotal and in the future
becomes the norm for those in the system field.

This thread has been mostly pessimistic, perhaps there is hope yet?

~~~
Stratoscope
Thanks, you are very kind. But if you read between the lines, you may note
that I'm not quite as happy with my story as I'd like to be. There were so
many opportunities I've had that I didn't capitalize on.

jQuery was one. Another was Visual Basic, the VBX, and being known at the time
as a Famous Windows Programmer. Before that was my infamous Steve Jobs story:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7451018](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7451018)

Maybe this is one big advantage of youth: you can make mistakes like this and
still have many years to correct them. At my age, well, I still do have plenty
of good years ahead of me, but I certainly don't have as much room to "pivot"
as I used to.

------
yodsanklai
> But these days usu­al­ly doesn’t both­er reach­ing out; 40-plus wom­en are
> ba­si­cal­ly not em­ploy­able in the tech­nol­o­gy sec­tor.

So what to do if you're in that case? aren't their companies out there that
hire people for their skills?

~~~
petsormeat
I'm a fifty-year-old developer, and a woman. Apparently, I was hired by my
current company a year ago to be a crash test dummy/scapegoat, rather than an
agent of righteous refactoring to a dreadful legacy codebase mostly written by
"recent grads."

If your management is moving towards stack ranking, you'll find a couple of us
around, because we're like the expendables on _Star Trek_: we're easily
discarded.

------
jeena
Weird, I just realized that I'm, with my 38 years of age are the oldest coder
at my company, never thought of that. But I was over 30 when I started at the
university doing computer science, so I still want to code a bit first.

~~~
vizeroth
I'm also 38, and probably at the high end of the majority of the programmers
at my workplace, but we have a handful of much older programmers who will
probably be retiring over the next 5-10 years, and not many in between (ages
in the mid 40s to early 50s seem pretty rare among the coders here). In our
case, a large percentage of the coders in the 50+ ages are very much
specialists supporting software and systems that are being phased out in part
because it is becoming more difficult to support those environments every
year.

It is difficult to find career paths which continue to make it worthwhile and
still continue coding, but it's also difficult to find people who want to
continue coding and can keep up with the progress of technology. Further, it's
difficult to evaluate whether someone has the right combination of skills,
desire, and adaptability in the hiring process. Unfortunately, most people
seem more likely to associate 2 out of 3 of those traits with youth, and those
also happen to be the hardest traits to see on a resume. For example, if
someone has worked on a lot of projects in a lot of different software
environments with different programming languages, it can be difficult to
determine whether this means they can adapt well to change, or they can't work
well with a team or grasp the necessary concepts for a given platform or
language.

------
BatFastard
As an over 50 developer, I find for me personally its better to start up a
company, or join a small company as CTO. That way your useful experience is
maximized from both a leadership and technical perspective.

------
shams93
You get to know the principles behind the code pretty well after 2 decades at
it. In Los Angeles we just don't seem to have the same level of overt ageism.
I've been coding since 1995 and haven't had to even dye my hair much less go
for plastic surgery. If you're working your mind as hard as we do it keeps you
sharp. Maybe other people your age couldn't learn this but your mind is much
sharper than average and stays sharp thanks to daily mental workouts of
solving hard engineering problems.

------
zeveb
I can't help but think of this video:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sz0o9clVQu8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sz0o9clVQu8)

It's actually pretty true to my experience. I'd rather work with someone who's
confident and self-assured, rather than emotionally needy. I'd rather work
with someone who's experienced. I'd rather work with someone who's
professional.

In short, I think I'd rather work with Tim …

------
pipio21
It is not ageism, it is supply and demand, as simple as that.

How many people had access to computers 25 - 30 years ago? Very few, like me,
and we were privileged. Getting time to learn with a computer was expensive
like getting knowledge about programming them. For example computer APIs were
on books you had to buy.

You also had to spend so much time fixing your computer's BSD(blue screen of
death), making your (software)modem to work, or your Linux distribution to
install when it was all from the command line.

Now everybody can buy a Raspi for 40 dollars and connect it to TV and it just
works. Everybody can access top quality tutorials on youtube, all the APIs and
other documentation is online.

People in Ghana, Kenya or India can share a Raspi computer and learn. Chinese
could also start buying them. While the West access to tech privilege persist,
the gap is narrower and narrower over time.

This means there are a hundred times more programmers than in the past,
specially young people. If they can compete with you watching youtube
channels, they will, obviously.

If you have certain age with only programming knowledge you are not privileged
anymore. This is tough for some people to understand.

I remember when knowing HTML alone could earn you lots of bucks. Not happening
anymore.

------
3chelon
I'm 48 and been a programmer since I was at school. I do
contracting/consulting work so regularly change jobs, and I personally feel I
have encountered surprisingly little ageism. I suppose a lot of it comes down
to your attitude and enthusiasm.

I think the following generally helps:-

* Keep your CV/resume impressive. Nothing says "unemployable" like 10 years running an outdated DB system at a boring company;

* Change job or interview frequently;

* Don't try to adopt all the latest fads (impossible, anyway) - instead, play to your strengths and focus on your general area of expertise, and every few years learn a new relevant language or system in depth;

* Keep those old-school skills sharp! You can always impress a 21-year-old hacker in a hoodie if your command line / regex / disassembly / wireshark (or tcpdump!) skills are better than his.

~~~
forgetsusername
> _Keep your CV /resume impressive_

What does that even mean?

> _Change job or interview frequently_

It's hard for me to fathom that people see this as a positive. Red flag for
me. But I guess I'm getting "old".

------
adultSwim
The other side of this discussion is the exploitation of young engineers.
Companies know they can pay them less and work them more.

Just look at the video game industry. Relies on a steady stream of suckers who
can be used up and spit out. Their love of games is taken advantage of.

Many older workers are better, not worse, than their younger counterparts.
They are discriminated against because they can't be so easily fooled (e.g.
thinking a beer fridge is an acceptable trade for lots of unpaid overtime)

Experience matters. It took me years to even realize that programming is only
half of my job. Though I'm not yet an OG, I'm a better engineer than when I
started.

------
antirez
I'm 39 and I'm so scared, also being in Sicily so very far from the IT scene,
that I'm investing my savings to buy some land here to do agriculture when
I'll no longer be able to pay my bills with programming.

~~~
eternalban
I remember having a conversation with my father, an engineer, a few years ago
when I was in my early 30s. He was adamant that I start thinking about either
going to technical management (which he had done) or switching fields.

My arrogant (or cueless, as you wish) self then smuggly told him "software is
different. People don't care if you are a rolling hairball as long as you can
write code".

He was right, of course.

I'm not sure with star programmers with hot properties such as yourself this
will be an issue but then there is the pull quote from Gosling in the OP!

Today if a young engineer asks for my advice, I consistently tell them to
either take the necessary steps to end up on the stakeholder side of tech, or
to save like mad while the going is good to allow for the necessary career
switch at mid 30s.

~~~
antirez
Totally agree! And it's better to make people aware of this in our industry so
that they start planning ahead and even ask for an adequate compensation when
doing this job... I think it will be a problem with me as well if I would like
to continue as a programmer in my later years, but I'll probably switch to
project management or something like that when I'll feel that it's the right
moment, however this will likely mean at least to relocate to Milan (north
Italy) or alike. Or... agricolture if my project will work.

~~~
eternalban
> ask for an adequate compensation when doing this job

That appears to be one of the motivations for certain prominent voices in the
industry dismissing the value of experience. To be fair, even in early 90s
there were telltale ads for "senior engineer, 3 years of experience" :)) I
used to laugh when I saw those back then but now the joke's on me.

> I'll probably switch to project management or something like that when I'll
> feel that it's the right moment

None of my business but why not build a business around Redis and tend to your
garden in the warmer climes. Milan is charming in a way but it[']s the coldest
(in the psychological/emotional sense) Italian city I have ever visited.

------
knocte
Not sure if it's because of the startup culture or simply because there are
actually no older candidates.

In my case, 36yo, in a startup, I'm the oldest in it. But I've been
interviewing many people and I think we only got 1 candidate which was older
than me (we didn't hire because it was not a good fit, with so much experience
but without much experience in our tech stack, we thought it would mean paying
a fair amount for someone to be basically learning from us, as we were looking
for coders, not architects/principals/leads).

~~~
crpatino
It's kind of ironic hearing you claim that there are no older candidates, then
in the next paragraph you confirm having rejected candidates due to not
knowing the particular tech stack your team uses.

Even if there were legitimate reasons for not hiring that person (sounds like
he/she was not a good fit _for_ _the_ _position_ ), the way you frame it
sounds like you do not understand/appreciate what a senior engineer brings to
the table. You don't pay seasoned professionals to come and learn the latest
fad (though for them, it will look like a perk), you pay them to double check
your ideas and spot potential problems they have seen before.

If you are offering a junior position with junior-level salary, and the senior
candidate is OK with that, what's not to like? There are of course risks about
the new hire jumping ship when something better comes, and you may structure
their pay to discourage early attrittion. But if you blame the senior guy for
not being junior enough, that's exactly the ageist attitude we are discussing
here.

~~~
knocte
> candidates due to not knowing the particular tech stack your team uses.

candidate, in singular: it was only one.

> you do not understand/appreciate what a senior engineer brings to the table.
> You don't pay seasoned professionals to come and learn the latest fad

I completely agree, but this particular candidate had been using JavaScript
for the past year and when we asked him why did he switch to JavaScript from
the other tech stack he was using before, he answered something along the
lines of "well, it's the latest fad".

So believe when I tell you, we rejected him exactly because of the opposite
reasons you state.

------
p333347
Whenever I read such articles, I am completely at a loss as to what it means
to code. Do they mean churning out code, like a codemonkey, for something that
some architect has designed? Do they mean getting their hands dirty by
pitching in to write some code for something that they themselves have
architected? Do they mean doing the whole gig, starting from vague idea to
producing a usable software, all by themselves and thus having to write all
the code themselves instead of hiring a young ninja?

------
stuaxo
Seems to be less of a problem in the UK (though may well still be a problem) -
I guess I will find out soon.

