> Older developers can usually do in one day what takes a hotshot 20-something a week.
That might be true above a certain level of complexity. But a majority of work is often mundane stuff that even the 20-somethings can do in their sleep. And they're just as fast at that.
I would agree with that. I spent 43 years as a developer and I would say at the end I had 2 important insights:
1 - to always consider the person who had to pick up my work and fix it or change it. That is, making it easy for them, not impressing them with my brilliance.
2 - that apart from the above, only the end result is important. The language used, the framework, package, or methodology have no importance except in achieving the end result and point 1.
I would say that if that is how you work you are old, or old beyond your years.
More importantly what we deliver costs significantly less to maintain.
For managers in for-profit [1] companies there's a clear argument for why you'd want to hire us:
a) There is a significant $$$ value that comes with a 5x increase in project throughput. [2]
b) Maintenance costs make up >= 60% of the TCO for your software. [3]
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[1] I realise this excludes most of the companies represented by the folk who frequent HN these days.
[2] https://books.google.com/books?id=PPm4EkDnAx8C&pg=PA203
[3] https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3477706/development-cost...