[wallflower]

Like the old saying goes, if you want to burn down a house, you don't burn it down from the outside, you light the fire inside. An individual who has just invested thousands of dollars in their own self-education and (most likely) heard the negativity and 'you're crazy' from their family and peer group has a lot to prove. Their house is on fire. Your ability to learn has nothing to do with your age - it has more to do with your mindset and your ability to proactively deal with frustration and failure. And let go of your ego (code reviews).

I know programmers with 15+ years of experience who are doing the same thing year after year. After a while, the years of experience for that type of programmer are meaningless. Also, either the company or their peer group restricts their ability to learn new things. Many of them with families and (now) college tuition bills to pay don't mind this restriction on learning. There are many more 9-5 programmers than the people who live and breathe on the bleeding edge.

The reality is that while there are only a couple superb programmers at the level of Linus Torvalds, Bill Joy, Thomas Knoll in the world's history - there are many orders of magnitude more programmers who might not change the world but help keep the increasingly technological world running. There is room for many more programmers and we don't need to restrict the industry to the narrow intake funnel of 4 year CS degree.