[airbreather]

Part of it is that when you are 15 years old almost all the hours of the day are yours to pursue what you want, and if you focus you can cover immense ground on something you are intensely interested in, all while being fed, clothed and ferried etc.

Fast forward 10, 20 years, some children, maybe a few wives/ex-wives, aging parents, you just don't have the time without some sort of moonshot mentality.

So I think a lot of it is circumstantial and not actually age directly, I am over 50, and design/write highly specialized software, the sort that ends up averaging a line a day across the life of the project maybe, or definitely that kind of metric for unique code.

I pick up new stuff all the time, I look for better ways and tools in general browsing etc almost every day, experiment with whatever I can get my hands on and find that any slow down in cognition is more than made with by experience and the ability to just "see" things at a glance other people cant.

Don't let age defeat you for no reason, believe in yourself and not what other people say, you will know what you can do fairly quickly, just be honest with yourself and target your strengths and work on your weaknesses.

[giantg2]

I agree, especially about the mentality part. I'm 30 and I've already seen my expertise in two obscure stacks thrown away, the politics behind promotions, and more. I feel like why should I bust my ass learning a new stack if I'm just going to be thrown away and don't even make that much.

Of course that's also coupled with the family constraints you mention as well.