Old Geek Jobs: fighting against ageism in the industry
Half of a coder&#x27;s value is understanding &quot;unspoken&quot; requirements.  In other words, &quot;having experience in the industry&quot;.  Or &quot;domain-specific knowledge&quot;<p>Back in the day, there were different industries to have experience in.  Jet engines, medical devices, etc.  Beyond that, nothing had&#x2F;needed&#x2F;understood software.  For better or worse, it was a pinnacle.<p>These days &quot;the industry&quot; is &quot;teens using snapchat&quot;.  The further you are removed from that, the less valuable you are as a coder.<p>There are still of course jet engines and medical devices to be built, but (as a statement to our society?) those products and thus those skills are not as valuable as advertising.<p>Even more sadly, this trend is just the start.  The current 40&#x27;s-ish coders have their own industry experience to fall back on.  The next generation of coders that will have nothing but 15secOfFame-centric jobs will have nothing to fall back on as younger 15msOfFame-centric things come in.<p>At some point we&#x27;ll have to recognize coding as an NFL-style career.  Get what you can while you can; you&#x27;ll be a car salesman soon enough.  Granted NFL players have 100x the pay plus public visibility that can help them after they retire.<p>None of this matters because the Earth will be sand in 20 years anyway.  (Sorry I&#x27;m still digesting <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;xkcd.com&#x2F;1732&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;xkcd.com&#x2F;1732&#x2F;</a>)