I have yet to hear a cogent argument on why folks in their late 40s or early 50s are not adequately represented in programming positions start ups or otherwise. What is unique about programming as a practice that make it unsuitable for professional beyond a certain age?
Because programming is concerned with "details", it was considered clerical work from the beginning. Look at the indignities suffered by Jean Bartik and the female staff that were assigned to program ENIAC. Do you think they would have assigned women at the time if they had any idea of the intellectual challenge of programming?
Since programming is considered low level work, it's always been a smart move for programmers to find their way out of it into management or whatever. Relying on the good will of employers has always been a dubious proposition (except maybe during the American post-war boom—a unique period in world history), so it stands to reason that most programmers would be looking to move up and out.
In most professions that have similar age barriers to early exit (sports comes to mind immediately) one case expect to be compensated handsomely for the short while that one has is holding on to the position, this is not the case with programming.
In the case of sports you have 10,000 people that aspire to every single paid position. If programming were that way, where vast swaths of people practiced daily from age 6-21 in the hope of snagging one of the glorious few spots, then you could expect pay to scale accordingly. As it is, I think the economics of being a startup founder are a bit closer to professional athlete.
Were the ENIAC's programmers really "programmers" in today's sense of the term, or were they more like compilers, while program designers or systems analysts (not sure what the contemporary term was) were closer to what we would recognize as programmers?
Is it possible that you are confusing the context with the specifics when it comes to the sport analogy?
On the aspect of practice, why is practice from the ages of 6-21, 15 yrs any different than practice from 15-45, 30 yrs. The answer may lie in what you say, "programming is considered clerical work". That being the case it becomes the responsibility of those currently in the profession to make sure that those who are in the stages of making a choice are adequately aware of it. Tho, it would make me sad if that were truly the case. I do not believe that to be the case.
Because programming is concerned with "details", it was considered clerical work from the beginning. Look at the indignities suffered by Jean Bartik and the female staff that were assigned to program ENIAC. Do you think they would have assigned women at the time if they had any idea of the intellectual challenge of programming?
Since programming is considered low level work, it's always been a smart move for programmers to find their way out of it into management or whatever. Relying on the good will of employers has always been a dubious proposition (except maybe during the American post-war boom—a unique period in world history), so it stands to reason that most programmers would be looking to move up and out.
In most professions that have similar age barriers to early exit (sports comes to mind immediately) one case expect to be compensated handsomely for the short while that one has is holding on to the position, this is not the case with programming.
In the case of sports you have 10,000 people that aspire to every single paid position. If programming were that way, where vast swaths of people practiced daily from age 6-21 in the hope of snagging one of the glorious few spots, then you could expect pay to scale accordingly. As it is, I think the economics of being a startup founder are a bit closer to professional athlete.