[mdmarra]

The HN crowd baffles me sometimes. It seems to move between "This person is too old. They are disconnected from today's generation," and "This person is too young. They don't have the experience to share meaningful anecdotes."

At what age would this person's comments hold water? 25? 28? 30?

[RyanZAG]

When someone is making statements about a global truth, such as the ability to be productive, experience is paramount. We all know you can pull off 80 hour weeks for a little bit before bad stuff happens, etc. It takes a bit of experience to learn what happens after a couple years of that.

When someone is talking about fashions or the popularity of new technologies etc, then being too old is going to make your opinion less useful as it's going to be harder for you to unlearn what you've already learned. This is generally far less of a problem and I really haven't seen much "This person is too old" on HN, but you do see it a lot on reddit as reddit attracts a very young crowd.

[mtrimpe]

I think in this case it's actually relevant to mention age, because I'm more and more inclined to believe that while 60+ hours can be a good thing to do in your twenties, especially if your digital life is your social life, but that it rarely ever is a smart thing to do after you're thirty.

Young coders don't have that much experience yet and will often have to rely on their brawn rather than their wit which could perhaps make the 60+ hours thing a solid strategic choice.

As I've grown older I've found that I can deliver much more value with much less effort by being well rested and taking a step back to see what's actually the important thing to do.

Whether I'm doing so because I've become wiser or because I've become less effective in those long hours is a different question altogether of course.

[k-mcgrady]

You don't have to be a certain age for your comments to matter - it's specific to the scenario you're commenting on. Someone with 30+ years in the workforce has much more knowledge to comment on it that someone with only a few years.

[mcv]

> At what age would this person's comments hold water? 25? 28? 30?

39.