[maresca]

My guess is that the older developers have more time to comment and follow up. Plenty of times I have looked for solutions on stackoverflow, but have been too busy to post responses because of looming deadlines. This is like saying my grandparents would make for better farmers because they spend their whole day on Farmville.

[gbelote]

I don't think a 45-year-old developer has inherently more free time than a 25-year-old. Given that a 45-year-old is more likely to have a family than a 25-year-old, I'd expect them to have less free time.

[markkanof]

It could be though that a 45-year-old has better perspective on what's important and what's not and therefore has better time management skills.

I know when I was first starting out as a developer I spent a lot of long days and weekends working but not really getting a whole lot accomplished. As I've matured, I've gotten better at picking out what's really important and am now much more productive while working less hours. I anticipate this trend to continue as I gain more experience.

[maresca]

While this is true, you also don't see many 45-year-olds doing 60 and 70 hour work weeks.

[gbelote]

Yes, but presumably they aren't spending those extra 20-30 hours writing StackOverflow answers.