Yes I've exaggerated this scenario a bit, but the point stands and it's very real.
As an old myself I can say anecdotally that nearly all of the interviewees we bring in who exhibit this behavior are graybeards like myself, but even then they’re a minority
Jumping from this kind of information to conclusions about the gp's willingness to argue or anything else is exactly what this lawsuit is directed against, and I am looking forward to this practice being eradicated.
I can trashtalk the design on everything I've directly worked on more accurately and damningly than things I read about online that seem like bad ideas. And I do.
Do you think because I find fun to rip on things in contexts where hyperbole and humor are permissible, that it negatively impacts my ability to exercise coolheaded evaluation in collaboration and decision making contexts?
People are offended because the post you're replying to literally only said, "I've gotten less job offers since I turned 40."
Your response was, "well, that's probably your fault."
To rephrase one of your earlier comments, "I'm really not saying you're ageist. I'm just saying I've experienced a non-trivial amount of victim blaming that looks like this, and it's a possibility worth considering if you want other people to take you seriously."
a) Getting pushback on your idea is not necessarily someone taking offense
b) Casting react as a "hip design trend" is not - in and of itself - a statement about it's fitness for a purpose. It's a statement about popularity, and highly visible things should expect criticism.
c) Even if trendy is meant to disparage the tool as nothing more than a flash in the pan, I think that gets to my (unaddressed) point about hyperbolic language in unimportant discussions.
e) "The reaction proves the point" can be applied to any disagreement, therefore it doesn't reinforce a point without more substance that they're meaningfully connected.
d) It's still unclear what your point was supposed to be. My ask for clarity was not facetious, so far I'm only responding to the point I can infer but find flimsy enough that I preemptively conceded you might be getting at something else.
Which is to say, sure, you can boil people down to caricatures, and there will even be people who match them. There are reflexively recalcitrant developers who don't want to adopt anything new, there are technological magpies whose decisions are driven by fashion and resume bullet points. The former probably do tend older, as they have a sense of less time in general and would prefer to reserve learning for new capabilities rather than different ways of doing the same thing, and perhaps even be judicious about time learning vs doing things they value. The latter probably do skew younger, as it's easier to feel you have years and energy to burn and less reference for how change works in the industry.
So what's very real are the incentives and tradeoffs underlying the decision making. The idea that what the past has provided is often adequate and investment in the new has costs is correct. The idea that there may be improvements in the new is also correct.
If you believe this, maybe having cranky 50 year olds who are going to make your organization justify its decisions is actually an asset along with people who are curious to invest in the new shiny...
You put your scenario in disparaging terms, but consider another way to look at it:
- They may well actually know better. Listen, ask questions and learn. - You say arguing, but you most definitely want people who think critically about literally everything. (You also need people who will get on board with the plan even thought they don't necessarily agree with all the details.)
Yes older coders have weathered more fashions and succumbed to many themselves so in some respects they do know better
A few interesting things that I’ve experienced:
- Companies tend to like me enough that they keep asking me back to “meet more people” - a very time-wasting process that often ends with silence (and no returned emails or calls)
- When rejected from a particularly interesting company, I will sometimes offer to work for free or a discounted rate initially, just so I can prove what I can do. No one has ever taken that offer.
- I have even offered to work at a very discounted salary, on par with a new grad salary. My rational is that I’ll still make more than I would at Whole Foods, and I’m confident that they’ll be impressed enough to bump me to my normal salary. No takers. Although one company did say that by hiring me, I would “cause more harm than good”. WTF?
And don't let anyone squeeze you to make your actual rate lower. I once went to an interview where I was told that the expectation would be for 45 hours of billable work per week, and so I immediately told them that my salary expectation for that would be 20% higher than for a 40 hour work week. They could raise the salary, or lower the work hours, because on a per-hour basis, their pay range was suddenly no longer competitive.
They declined to negotiate that. So I eventually went to work for someone else more willing to pay me what I think I'm worth.
Don't work for free; it just encourages those who try to scam free work out of people. The only person for whom you should be doing unpaid work is yourself.