Programming is a skilled labor, not a profession, in that you are &quot;supposed&quot; to do it for a couple years and then move on.  Like teens used to work at McDonalds and give weird looks to the creepy 30 yr old guy still working fast food.<p>When its not noteworthy for programmers to have an age distribution similar to the greater population, or for experience to be respected instead of being made fun of, then programming will finally become a profession rather than a semi-skilled labor.<p>Personally I don&#x27;t mind being made fun of by the kids... I get a lot of money cleaning up their inexperienced mistakes.