> Marco Anglesio wrote:
>
> >Software developers have a limited lifespan
>
> How limited? Do you get too old to learn new languages or algorithms?
> Do employers just want younger programmers because they can work
> longer hours for lower pay? I'd love to hear more about this.
>
> Doug
I could go on longer on this subject than on Social Security.
To my mind the best book on this subject is "In the Name of Efficiency" by Joan Greenbaum, about 1980.
It's interesting how programmers are their own worst enemy, blaming themselves or rather other programmers who blindly resist getting with it, whatever the current "it" is. Talk about internalization.
Anyhow, you guessed it: younger programmers are cheaper. You might be overlooking that they are also easier to control.
Programming began as an outgrowth of both math and engineering. It began as a skilled art or craft. The word "bug" comes from old engineering and means a malfunctioning machine that is somehow insane. Thomas Alva Edison used it in his notes. Its etymology is the same as "bugbear" or "bogeyman"; a frightening monster. I believe it came to mean "menacing, murderous insanity" as in "Bugsy Moran." The story that it came from a moth beaten to death in a relay of the Mark I computer is folk etymology.
Management's persistent aim has been to deskill the field. One of the never-ending battles is over programming language. It masks a struggle to control the work, with older programmers fighting doggedly for the language that gives them more control over the work, and management and its supporting programmers insisting on the newer language that permits using less skilled workers.
"Bug" is useful in revealing programming's engineering origins. Here's a test for how far we have gotten from the math background of programming. How does one convert a number in floating point representation to printable characters? It's not a trivial problem, but almost no programmer today knows how to do it. Yet all programming languages provide the conversion as a matter of course. A common reply if you do ask the question is: Pause. "Why do you want to do that?" Then the suggestion, "Use a high-level language." Evasion in other words.
In 1982 I was the lead programmer on a project I thought was important. There was crucial code I had to write, but management pulled me off and made me insert copyright statements in each and every module. I did what I was told but I thought management was nuts. Any fool could see that the code I needed to write was more important. Then it hit me. A copyright is a statement of ownership. Of course. Who owned the work? Management wasn't looking at work in terms of usefulness or functionality, but of ownership. Management was absolutely right, this mindless task of sticking in copyright statements was far more important than getting a crucial section of code written (and which depended on my skill and art) whose lack would threaten the project.
Read the book. It's briefer than I.
-- John K. Taber