> But it won't make any old engineer a rival to the big names in software engineering.
This stood out, so I looked it up, and it seems Richard Hipp is 61 years old. I guess it is more about the "any" than the "old". Or maybe old engineers are engineers doing it the "old way" (pre-chatgpt)?
"any old x" is an idiom that references "any random" or "any", indicating x being interchangeable or not special in any way. It has nothing to do with age.
This stood out, so I looked it up, and it seems Richard Hipp is 61 years old. I guess it is more about the "any" than the "old". Or maybe old engineers are engineers doing it the "old way" (pre-chatgpt)?