In one of my recent posts on Ajaxian, I wrote about a 15-year old developer that created an impressive web-based client for Second Life. I was truly amazed at how young people are becoming more proficient in technology and especially application development.
In a recent comment, though, I was a bit taken aback by something that another developer said:
i am 18 and already worked for a company(as a web developer) for 2 years,i start working when i was 15 in tripcart.com,too bad i need to go to the army(i live in Israel).
The age doesn't matter,it is the skills that matter,and young people get things faster,it is the same as a kid can learn a language(a natural one) very fast compared to a older person.
In the last paragraph, Uriel Katz states that “young people get things faster”. Huh?!
Now, I do agree that young people have the fire to learn something new and for many developers, that's something that seems to slowly diminish as they get older. But the assertion that young developers get work done faster is a bit far fetched. Having worked in IT for almost 20 years now, I've seen my fair share of young bucks that have been not only slow but extremely sloppy in their work. I also feel that experience counts for quite a bit when developing applications.
What's your take on this?
