The author is telling people to pick up Cobol/Basic/Pascal/MUMPS (and not Go or another modern language) as their first language in 2022? To make themselves more employable? How did this make it to the front page? I get that some people will like the old-man grumpiness in the post but put that aside and focus on the actual advice they're giving - it's just outright harmful career advice.
And also, think about it from first principles - why would people starting their programming careers 15+ years later than most people need to pick different tools? It makes no sense at all.
>why would people starting their programming careers 15+ years later than most people need to pick different tools? It makes no sense at all.
*One low barries to entry* Companies like Vanguard are desperate for Cobol engineers. They'll train just about anyone. I know quite a few financial analysts of all ages that made the leap to maintain their legacy systems and are doing quite well for themselves. There is little competition for this sort of job
*It might work out well for everyone* Not everyone is looking to do the latest, most marketable work. Imagine someone that is 57 and plans to retire in 5-10 years. This works out great for both them and the employer. The employer gets coverage on their legacy systems, springs free folks earlier in their career to build that sexy, next gen replacement, the employee gets a nice, cushy ride into the sunset. If its planned well the replacement system arrives right around retirement time. Migrate and move to Florida
*Some folks are not looking to ride the dragon* Some folks love the idea of a system that is completely understood and battle tested. Some of these legacy systems benefit from 30-40 years of hardening. Adding enhancements and such have clear, uniform processes honed over decades with very little in the way of surprises. For many folks the idea of come in at 9 and leave at 5 with little volatility is very appealing.
> There is little competition for this sort of job
On both sides of the market. There's like 75 times as many javascript job listing as there are cobol ones on popular job boards.
You can get all of those things without leaning on a tech stack with such a small job pool. Most development jobs, especially at large companies, are maintenance-oriented development.
Java is the ecosystem to learn if the three points you listed are important to someone. There are gobs of Java jobs out there, many are battle-tested systems built long ago running in established companies. Another benefit is that there's an actual job market for Java developers, which should be a huge consideration for everyone, because having a stable job isn't the same as having a stable job feel good going to every day.
> And also, think about it from first principles - why would people starting their programming careers 15+ years later than most people need to pick different tools?
Because the people hiring people that are relatively inexperienced but not practicing undercover age discrimination tend to be very much not representative of the industry, or opportunities for new programmers, at large; people starting their career late need to specifically target that market segment, not the more general one.
Note: I am not convinced of the specific advice, particularly in language focus, that the author here gives, but it is still less wrong than your suggestion that there is no difference between the optimum approaches for (by age) late- and early-entrants to programming.
> Because the people hiring people that are relatively inexperienced but not practicing undercover age discrimination tend to be very much not representative of the industry, or opportunities for new programmers, at large; people starting their career late need to specifically target that market segment, not the more general one.
The other place that doesn't practice age discrimination as much in my experience is local companies. They have a hard time attracting anyone in the first place so it's the easiest to get started if you just show you're reliable and willing to learn/work.
> the people hiring people that are relatively inexperienced but not practicing undercover age discrimination tend to be very much not representative of the industry
That is our gain. I've interviewed some great talent for entry level positions who have 20 year experience in weird non-programming things. They lack the technical skills to be worth more than entry level pay, but their resume shows more passion than many of the fresh out of CS (or boot camp) they are competing against. They also have enough background that if their skills develop as expected they will move up the ladder quickly.
I agree with GP. The article's author is completely wrong IMO. If there is a difference in the approach of a twenty-something and a forty years old to start a software development career is not in the language choice. I think both should consider the same things regarding their choice. Namely: what they feel they like more and what has the most jobs.
The difference is more likely to be in the interview skills. How they can make an effort to relate more with the interviewer (since they won't "naturally" connect through popular videogame tastes, memes, slangs, or whatever).
The author is telling people to pick up Cobol/Basic/Pascal/MUMPS (and not Go or another modern language) as their first language in 2022? To make themselves more employable? How did this make it to the front page? I get that some people will like the old-man grumpiness in the post but put that aside and focus on the actual advice they're giving - it's just outright harmful career advice.
And also, think about it from first principles - why would people starting their programming careers 15+ years later than most people need to pick different tools? It makes no sense at all.