Old School vs New School Programmers Problems and/or Benefits [closed]

Question

I am a recent college graduate working for a large corporation that has an aging workforce. I am curious for peoples experiences on working with an age gap preferably from both sides.

Examples Issues I have encountered so far:

• Agile practices vs Waterfall
• Collaboration between programmers vs individuality
• Working early in the morning vs late at night

I learned primarily agile programming in school while the project I am on (and most of the developers are used to waterfall)

I am used to collaborating with classmates and friends on projects while I tend to see older programmers like to do their own thing. I feel like I pester them asking them questions.

I find myself more of a night programmer, but most of my older colleagues are early morning (5am)

Any experiences on the age gap in the technology work is relevant.

Answer 1

When I was right out of college, I was a night owl, and I would roll into work in late morning, even though I stayed late for hours after everyone else left. It was really hard to build rapport with other people. It was no surprise that I also felt unwelcome when I tried to ask questions or work collaboratively.

Even though your coworkers use waterfall methods that are considered outdated, it doesn't mean they work ineffectively. An successful project has more to do with teamwork than any particular methodology. Agile methods have codified this idea, but it's still practiced informally in any successful team.

You aren't going to change the way the whole group does their work, so try it their way for a while. Come into work at the time they do. Talk with them at coffee breaks and go to lunch with them. Ask open-ended questions and listen to their answers. You might be surprised to find they have some useful experience to offer.

I'd also recommend against trying to persuade them to adopt agile methods. Instead, you can practice some agile methods de facto. For example, simply ask someone to look over your shoulder to help on a tough problem (people are usually willing to show their skill at solving tough problems). Voila! You're pair programming. But don't call it that! :-)

Answer 2

I have been on both sides of the fence, so to speak.

The problem with agile programming is that, like any tool, it isn't always appropriate for the task. In some environments a waterfall methodology is still effective.

I don't think the collaboration differences come from an age difference, but rather that is the style that has been fostered by that company and the work environment. I worked at a defense contractor for a while just out of school where almost everyone on the project was considerably older than I was but there was a very high amount of collaboration. On the flip side, I have worked for companies where everyone was around the same age and there was almost no collaboration.

People will either like answering questions/mentoring or they won't. Age doesn't necessarily make much of a difference. I have worked with people that are older and younger than I am but there have only been a few people that genuinely like answering questions (whether they were project related or not).