whats the average age of programmers on here

  • Thread starter Thread starter Guest
  • Start date Start date
Super Fan said:
No, what I mean is that the average age of .net programmers is like
50.
Click to expand...

I'm intrigued as to how you come to that conclusion, when only two
replies have suggested an age of over 50, and plenty have been
significantly under.

The average of the exact numbers given so far (i.e. not counting Cor
and JD, who haven't given actual ages) is just under 38, which I hardly
think is particularly old. It's only about half way through a normal
professional life.

I'm 28, btw, just to throw my hat into the ring.
 
The question would then be why do you think they use .NET instead of Java? I
mean, is there something about .NET that you think attracts older
developers? Or perhaps something about Java that repels them? Or perhaps
what you're just seeing is a standard developer age cross-section? Have you
attempted this poll on the Java newsgroups and compared the results? In
addition I'm interested in the huge leap you make when you say that ".NET is
just a way for old COM C++ programmers to do Java". Given even a full
sampling of ages from both the Java communities and .NET communities that
backed up your (incorrect) calculation in the first line, how do these
results translate to determining the reasons for your assumed age gap?

*sniff sniff*, definate troll smell in the air.

I'm 30 BTW.

Super Fan said:
No, what I mean is that the average age of .net programmers is like 50.

Which makes me think that all the younger programmers use java, and .net
is just a way for old COM c++ programmers to do java.
Click to expand...
 
Super Fan,

It is not impossible that what you write is true. After a while people want
proven tools and that is not from now, that has been forever. You won't know
how many program languages I have seen that "were" it.

Older ones don't want to go every time it the same holes.

Younger ones are the ones who wants to discover, while older ones have done
that already more times.(While newer things are often not so new or already
tried before and have showed not to work).

That is normal in nature. Human younger mostly survive, in the rest of
nature that is often not the case.

However before you think that, this says nothing about a program language.
Houses are still made from all kinds of stone while there have been a lot of
other materials.

Just my thought,

Cor
 
Jon Skeet said:
I'm intrigued as to how you come to that conclusion, when only two
replies have suggested an age of over 50, and plenty have been
significantly under.

The average of the exact numbers given so far (i.e. not counting Cor
and JD, who haven't given actual ages) is just under 38, which I hardly
think is particularly old. It's only about half way through a normal
professional life.
Click to expand...

Ok, in the name of statistical accuracy, you can mark me down as 62. And I
figure that it's about half way through a normal
professional life. 8-)

JD
 
Super Fan said:
No, what I mean is that the average age of .net programmers is like 50.
Click to expand...
Prone to exaggeration are we?
Which makes me think that all the younger programmers use java,
Click to expand...

Probably because Java is now the baseline programming
language for most academic courses and programs (unless you
go to MIT and get started with Scheme...). Java has been
around longer to be accepted by the academic community and
they also like it because it is supported by multiple
vendors.

So most fresh (and usually young) graduates will know Java
"best" when they look for a job.

Now from an employer's perspective: who will they put onto
those "new" .NET projects?

- if they already are a Microsoft shop they will look for
someone with .NET experience (who wouldn't be "freshly
graduated")- if they don't want to wait that long they will
train their own proven individuals (i.e. "not freshly
graduated").

- even an diversifying J2EE shop would not use new ("Java")
graduates on a .NET project. They either hire someone with
..NET experience or rely on their on "proven assets" to come
up to speed with "yet another platform" quickly.

Someone who has survived this profession for an extensive
period of time AND survived through continuous adaptation to
the ever changing technology can probably pick up "yet
another platform" more quickly than your average "fresh
graduate" who is still struggling to wrap their head around
their first major platform.

If you want to be cynical about it, you could say that
younger programmers are using Java because it is older (some
prefer the term "mature").
and .net is just a way for old COM c++ programmers to do java.
Click to expand...

Hardly. A background in COM would only give you an advantage
in a very narrow aspect of .NET (i.e. Interop and maybe
Enterprise Services). I'd say, in general, the learning
curve for .NET and J2EE is equally steep. Now an
organization that is heavily invested in COM technology and
components would be more likely to move to .NET to preserve
its investment for awhile - so people working in these
organizations ("not fresh graduates") would have a COM/C/VB
background and they will end up doing .NET rather than
Java/J2EE.

Now if there is a business reason to abandon COM and move to
J2EE then those COM/C/VB people will end up using Java.

Many "Agile Alliance" authors that now publish books with
..NET content have used Java in the past. They don't
necessarily prefer one over the other - its just a different
development environment. In fact, some of them still state
that they would have rather stuck with Smalltalk - it was
just too difficult to convince the customers that Smalltalk
could do the job. At the time, while Java was far from
perfect, it had the best commercial and mainstream support
so they switched to it - now some of them are adopting .NET
- probably not exclusively

Don't try to judge any technology based on its perceived
user base.
'Any fool can write code that a computer can understand.
Good programmers write code that humans can understand.'
Martin Fowler,
'Refactoring: improving the design of existing code', p.15
 
45

Programming in Java is great if you have a ponytail, wear sandals, and don't
mind driving a 1989 Honda Civic. It all boils down to money. I'll start
writing apps in COBOL again if pays more than I'm making now.
 
Well I started on a PDP-11 with front panel switches, paper tape boot,
and a
real teletype terminal.

Regards,
Jeff
 
Jeff said:
Well I started on a PDP-11 with front panel switches, paper tape boot,
and a real teletype terminal.
Click to expand...

Ditto. My second year, my school doubled RAM (to 8K, as I recall) and
switched from Focal to timeshared Basic with two teletyes.
 
Jeff said:
Well I started on a PDP-11 with front panel switches, paper tape boot,
and a real teletype terminal.
Click to expand...

Ditto, nearly. PDP-8, in my case. My second year, my school doubled
RAM (to 8K, as I recall) and switched from Focal to timeshared Basic
with two teletypes.
 
My first computer class was in Fortran, punching the code into initial
IBM cards, one line per card. You then took the "Deck" of cards to the IBM
room, the only air conditioned room in the building, and the white shirt
dark tie IBM employees would call you when they had time to schedule your
batch run on the 360 computer...which took up the whole room.
(IBM did not sell computers then, your company had to rent them and the
technicians worked on IBM not your company) I think this was about 1965.
I learned basic in a university class where you typed on a Teletype
terminal, and saved to paper punched tape, in the 70's
Did a lot of basic on the Atari 400, 800, 1200, in the 80's but gave up on
the Atari ST. (Does anyone remember learning "LOGO" for the ST ?
The Atari was a great learning experience. Everything had to fit in 8K
!!!!!
You could not waste a single byte.
Several 3rd party vendor offered Languages operating systems and software
that expanded
the system (Action, VisiCalc) so that when I first encountered spread
sheets, Dos, and "C"
they seemed already familiar.
I needed to write one specific program last month, so I browsed the
bookstore to see which
programming tool was sufficiently familiar that I could use it intuitively,
and decided that Visual
Basic 6 was understandable. I wrote my code using the demo disk that came
with the book, then
later discovered that VB6 is no longer readily available, so I obtained
VB.net STANDARD edition
This does not come with the vb6 wizard, so I had to buy a new set of books
and write all new code.
........joisey (age 66)
 
Back
Top