[theycallhimtom]

I've worked with old programmers who are great and old programmers who suck. Most of the points in the article are obviously wrong.

"Anyone who is still a programmer in their 40s has to have developed some good communication skills." "Old programmers are dabblers." "Old programmers have judgement." "We can pick up any new language because we’ve used so many over the years."

I've met old programmers who are counter examples to all these points.

A steelmanned version of the article would argue why older coders are more likely to have these skills than young coders. It also needs to talk about the average difference in ability relative to the variance in each group. If old coders are on average 0.1 standard deviations better than young coders you should focus on hiring the good old or young coders. If old coders are on average 1.5 standard deviations better than young coders you should just focus on hiring the good old coders and exceptional young coders.