[ahi]

I agree, but there is more to it. A 50 year old programmer in 1995 likely finished their formal education in the late sixties. What are the odds that their education was actually in a software development related field? As an industry and source of employment, software development grew a lot faster then sources of relevant education. In the recent past a lot of the ageism may have been due to the older generation of developers just being the guy in the office who could program. I think the ageism will wane a bit as more and more of the older programmers have the same foundation as the kids just coming out of school.