All the 40+ crowd around me is doing math and programming, that's kind of the day to day job at a hedge fund:)
:) I'm sorry, I've read your comment 4 times and I still can't make sense of it. Are you agreeing or disagreeing with me?
Could you please try and restate your opinion to be clearer?
Hedge fund might be an exception like academics and research. In most non-research oriented companies you will see more 40+ in management than in programming. Like you mentioned FoxPro people having bad time, even if you are skilled in latest 'programming' trend, a company might prefer (IME, most of the time it is true) someone younger than a 40+ in that role. For most companies, the marginal utility of a person plateaus or declines after about 5-7 years of progressive experience.
If you entered a field at 35 (appear 35) when most of the peer group in the company is 21, you are going to have hard time getting hired for same role being performed by 21. If the company that expects/has most 40+ employees in management, you are going to have hard time staying in technical role unless you have built bridges with management that want to keep you around.