<p>i am currently doing comp science in ccny. and have tackled some contradicting information on the web about the major and the field. on bloomber news it was stated that software engineering is a dead end career due to the fact that the demand is only for youngsters..on other websites it states that it is one of the best jobs to have. i extremely enjoy programming but would like to know the reality of things. where do older programmers go??? </p>
<p>This here old coder (let’s not call us ‘software engineers’ or ‘programmers’) is still writing code at 55, 35 years after he learned BASIC on some mystery General Automation (I think) minicomputer aeons ago. I’ve gone from languages that are as dead and buried as King Tut to modern stuff and everything in between. </p>
<p>You have to commit yourself to learning and keeping up. Two years ago I learned PHP, this year serious Javascript and HTML5 (as in, many thousands of lines thereof, not script kiddie type stuff). Occasional Python, C++, C, C#, Java… Ten years ago it was all C/C++. Thirty years ago it was PL/1 (what?) Things change. </p>
<p>A CS career works well if you’ve got some off the wall specialty that is tough to outsource or give to youngsters. My niche is graphical user interface development. My wife has had a similar career and hers is analytics and manufacturing systems. </p>
<p>It’s fun dealing with people half your age, you get to learn a lot and also teach them a lot. After coding for 35 years there isn’t much of anything I haven’t seen or coded, from a compiler to a full blown window system from scratch. But you have to like what you’re doing and keep doing it. </p>