[ruswick]

I agree. If you've made a good app, its merit will stand on its own. The fact that people believe their age to be the most remarkable aspect of the development of their product raises flags. If any things, it just seems like an attempt to artificially lower standards.

Your age doesn't matter. Your product does.

[garretruh]

That's it. Discourage them right from the start. He (or she) is 14 for crying out loud.

[ruswick]

I'm not discouraging them. I'm saying that age doesn't matter. Completing an app is a laudable accomplishment for anyone. Emphasizing their age, if anything, makes light of this accomplishment because it can come off as patronizing. I think that it's great that they made an app, but their age isn't important.

[cristiantsara]

I think age is relevant for this post. Otherwise nobody would be really interested in reading a post about a new release, everytime a programmer in this website comes up with their new app. So I think the most important thing is that he is just 14 years old provided that the quality of his work is decently acceptable.

PS: don't be like that to your own kids, cuz you will be hated as a father, I can guarantee you that.

[pooriaazimi]

> Your age doesn't matter. Your product does.

Product? It's a kid just learning to program and it's his/her first app (and is free). It's not a product!!! Just a typical "Show HN".

[ruswick]

I didn't mean "product" to imply something for created for commercial purposes. I simply meant that it was something he had produced.

[conradev]

I completely agree.

The initial rush of being X years old and a programmer soon wears off. For those young people who are serious about programming, age becomes more of an impediment, rather than a badge of honor.

If you broadcast that you are X years old, sometimes people will not take your work seriously. Sometimes they won't hire you. Sometimes people will take advantage of you. This is why, at some point, it's important to abstract away age from your work.

[ceol]

I'm pretty sure your age matters if it drastically deviates from the norm. What were most of us doing at 14? Playing videogames, trying to survive high school and puberty...

This kid publishes a freakin' iPhone game— a good one, at that!— and people are shitting on him for it? C'mon.

[chris_p]

> I'm pretty sure your age matters if it drastically deviates from the norm.

No, it doesn't. Most people deviate from the norm on something. Age, gender, disabilities. So what?

As a teenage programmer, I can say that teenage programmers aren't that uncommon any more. It's not remarkable, age really doesn't matter. Anyone over the age of 10 can learn programming by taking programming courses from world-renown universities nowdays. I'm 16 and I've been programming for years. That's only because I had a chance to learn programming and I took it, not because I'm more intelligent than a someone who's 20 years older than me and only got a computer when he was 18. Other people at my age didn't have such chances, and I'm thankful.

[ceol]

You just argued against yourself, here.

> Other people at my age didn't have such chances

That's my point. Being a 14 year old who knows Objective-C and has published a video game is still rare. I don't see how you can argue otherwise.

[chris_p]

I meant older people didn't have that chance when they were my age. 15 years ago computers weren't that common. Nowdays, almost every child in the western world has access to a computer from a very young age.

Even if you're right, even if it's something rare, we're missing the point. It's not about how rare it is, or how wonderful he is. It's about the product/game. Or at least it should be, in my opinion.