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0 pointschroma10y ago0 comments

> So just stay relevant? I'm 28, been coding for 19 years. What was relevant to learn when I was in middle and high school is completely useless now.

One thing that older people (50+) have impressed upon me is that learning gets harder as you age. It's not just that your body and mind become tired more easily. In general, if a 20-year-old and a 50-year-old spend the same amount of time studying something, the 20-year-old will do better on a quiz. At least, that's what older people tell me. I'm your age, so I haven't experienced this firsthand.

If at some point your rate of learning becomes slower than the rate at which relevant technologies change, it's not possible to stay relevant. Your deep understanding won't do you nearly as much good if you only know languages and frameworks from 15 years ago.

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5 comments · 3 top-level

terrywilcox10y ago· 2 in thread

Learning doesn't get much harder. Making time to learn gets much harder.

The real problem is that while the 50 year old has already had 30 years more learning than the 20 year old, the 50 year old probably doesn't know who the Kardashians are. How can you not know who the Kardashians are? What's wrong with you?

My exact experience.

true_religion10y ago

> the 50 year old probably doesn't know who the Kardashians are. How can you not know who the Kardashians are? What's wrong with you?

I know it's just a throw-away example, but I'd like to point out "Keeping up with the Kardashians" has been on TV continuously since 2007. The more prominent Kardasihan sisters themselves are all 34-36 years old.

I don't think anyone in their 50s really would have a hard time relating to someone in their mid-30s, nor be completely flummoxed by a TV show that's been available for 10 years.

More to the point--pop culture is popular culture and seeps its way through all age groups. A better example would be a music artist that's popular only with teenagers or some niche group. I couldn't name a single artist popular with teens/tweens now.

terrywilcox10y ago

You've just reinforced my point.

You understand that you are unaware of the younger generation's pop culture (pop music is as much part of pop culture as TV is), but you don't understand how people of my generation can be unaware of your generation's pop culture.

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tremendo10y ago

Learning doesn't get harder, but one does become more selective. Most of the "innovation" (not all of course) in programming, is just re-inventing wheels, the new framework is yet-another-way-to-accomplish-the-same-thing and at the same time, a new artificial way to filter out those "not up with the times" for those "not up with the experience". One thing you learn is that you can learn anything, in a short time, but there's hardly a point in putting in the effort into the new hotness when it'll be passé by the time you're comfortable with it.

WalterSear10y ago

Keeping physically fit helps.

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