[andriy_koval]

> With very rare exceptions, professional athletes are just not as good athletically at 40/50 as they were at 20. They may be smarter in some ways--which maybe means they'd be better as coaches.

not sure if focus should be on athletic sports. Chess is better analogy to software I think.

[jrumbut]

To part of it, but chess is generally played one against one, there are well understood rules and a clearly defined goal, and every win is someone else's loss.

When building software, if you can state an unambiguous goal and what rules apply you are more than halfway done. It's not uncommon to work on something for a year and discover you have been building the wrong thing. Navigating that ambiguity is where all the value in software engineering is.

[andriy_koval]

Sure, rules are different, though there are team chess competition, but the point is there are analogies not involving athleticism which declines with age, unlike software skills.

[Ar-Curunir]

Armstrong did not mean chess players.