I appreciate your interest in this topic and don't mind the personal criticism. I am sure some younger developers will read this, so for that reason I will respond to some of your points.
<< I wonder how long it's been since you were young. While saving early is likely a good idea, it's also the time that student loans, young families, buying houses etc are all huge costs that very likely making saving much impossible. It's also a time to have fun, travel, enjoy life. >>
These are all great excuses for not saving. Life doesn't care about your excuses. You either find a way to do it, or you don't. Some people will have such severe extenuating circumstances that saving much or anything is impossible, and my heart goes out to those people (and my respect for fighting an even harder battle than the rest of us). But the majority of young, employed developers can do it. Having fun, traveling and enjoying life in your 20s sounds great (and you can afford some of that even saving half your net income); but what about being in debt and living paycheck to paycheck in your 40s, with the stress of a spouse and kids to support? Having substantially no safety net to quit your job or take risks, so that you become enslaved to a safe job even if you hate it? The parable of the Ant and the Grasshopper is as true today as it was 2500 years ago when Aesop put it into his book of fables. And the truth is, having fun, traveling and enjoying life is great at almost any age, and much easier to do (and more enjoyable) with some financial independence. Saving when you are very young yields such huge benefits due to compound interest over time that it looks like a magic trick.
As for me, my experience is anecdotal but I did live through some incredibly hard times, including living in my car and with roommates in shitty apartments, and eating off the dollar menu at McDonalds for a long time (not recommended), and making a lot of other sacrifices in my personal life to get to where I wanted. I also had a lot of fun, traveled very cheaply with lifelong friends and had a great time. It's a balance, but not one that most people seem to strike very well.
<< I've been a software developer for 27 years and have encountered none of the "incredibly cruel" discriminations you suggest. It's definitely true and I see this often that many as they age don't bother to stay current, they get stuck in old ways and don't want to keep up to date. >>
I didn't imply that your interviewer would be ''incredibly cruel'' as in they would sneer and snicker at your age and you would encounter an environment of overt hostility and rudeness. I meant the transition from being ''hot'' and persistently courted by many companies and recruiters to no longer being as desirable can be confusing, painful mental whiplash. Having known a few professional athletes, the parallels are actually pretty apt - it's hard to go from the spotlight to the background for anyone. I agree with you that many don't bother to stay current as they age, and they should. Continuing education is not stressed enough in our field.
<< But for those that do, those that stay at the forefront of their field there's no discrimination. You just have to be better than the rest, whether you're 20 or 50. >>
I think this is demonstrably false, with a few rare exceptions. There is an age bias in our industry and it doesn't help anyone to pretend like it doesn't exist. In most startups and some company cultures it is worse, and in some company cultures it doesn't exisit at all, and in most companies it probably falls somewhere in between. I'm not saying that developers are unemployable after a certain age - they aren't, it's still very easy, relatively speaking, for them to find a job, but it might not be the job they want or the company they want to work for. Financinal independence gives them the freedom to pick and choose, or start their own company, rather than becoming sucked into slavery within a system that appreciates them progressively less and less each year.