[jacobolus]

One reason for a lower proportion of older programmers is that the field overall has grown dramatically, and many older programmers move to management, while new people entering the field tend to be younger.

But median age for programmers is ~40.

[sys_64738]

Those youngsters will age too and be over 40 someday.

[leereeves]

> median age for programmers is ~40.

That's encouraging, but a bit difficult to believe. What's your source?

[jacobolus]

web search -> data from the american community survey (done by the US census bureau)

But here’s a BLS page, https://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat11b.htm

Adding up a few related categories that’s only counting about 2 million workers, so it’s also possible that some younger workers aren’t being properly counted in the right category. Dunno...

Also keep in mind, a whole lot of programmers are working on some legacy enterprise applications instead of working at young companies on web apps. In some companies the age distribution is going to skew much younger.