Everyone is assuming that all "older" workers are experienced, have more family obligations, and are unwilling to learn new things.

What about all the people who are getting into development as a second or third career? I STARTED my CS degree at 45. Before that I had 12 years of experience as a network manager supporting hundreds of users. I was top in almost all of my classes and was often asked to tutor other students. Yes, the 22 year-olds asked me to tutor them, both because I knew it better AND because I could explain it better.

I have mature attitudes about writing clean code while still being creative in what I think can be done. One can be creative without being chaotic. I also have twelve years of experience helping users figure out how to use crappy user interfaces, so I also know what not do do UI-wise. My son is 34 years old and I am not in a relationship. I would love to just be able to hang out at the office all day working on code, eating catered meals, and talking with other developers. I am even willing to work cheap because it beats doing any other job for even less pay. So, I don't fit hardly any of the stereotypes.

There are going to be a lot more people like me coming into the development workforce. Hopefully, companies will be able to figure out what to do with us.

I have attended CS programs in two universities (started at one, transferred to another). Neither had a single course in secure software development.

So Tim O'Reilly can sell books, magazines, and conference tickets. He invented the term as a way to rebrand making shit yourself.

But, if you read the magazine (don't but it, just read some of it at the library) you will see that most of the projects are really nothing more than taking expensive pieces that someone else has prepared for you and spending a few minutes putting them together. There are very few explanations as to how it really works. You just buy the parts, download some prewritten code, put it together, and call yourself a "Maker."

... about this "debate":

1) Why nerdy men/boys don't want to be around more women.
2) Why more women don't have the imagination to see that any/all engineering can be turned toward a socially conscious purpose.

Have all these nerdy men just gotten bitter and given up on ever "getting" a woman? Do they now not want to even be around women so they won't be reminded of what they can't have. Maybe, just maybe, if more women "went into" STEM then more would eventually "be _into_" STEM. Then they would appreciate the nerdy guy's interest in it.

When I was young, I was interested in tech mostly because it was interesting in and of itself. As I got older, and even more liberal, I came to see how tech could be used for the good of humankind. Perhaps it would be good for both women _and_ men to be introduced to all the ways tech can help humanity (and still be hugely profitable) rather than see it as either just a nerdy hobby you can get paid for or just a way to make lots of money.

... only because they made up new laws (or executive orders) to make it legal.

Yeah, I voted for the guy, but I am a e seriously disappointed.

That "weird hyperdimensional shut" is the kind of innovation he is talking about. That stuff doesn't just fall from the sky. Lots of people have to innovate the he'll out of that stuff for years or decades. What website do you think you are reading, anyway?

This.

I have advocated for a tech apprenticeship program many times. I've seen others advocate for it right here on /.

And, when every single one of those job descriptions list "excellent communication skills" among the top priorities, there is one requirement that almost no foreign workers can meet. I used to have a pretty good eat for understanding foreign accents. But these days it takes two or three times as long to pry any meaning out of what a lot of these guys are saying. And they don't seem to be putting any effort into improving either.

Hey, that just "creates" more jobs, because when a worker gets sick of one employer he can't move on to another employer, thus freeing up two jobs.

Yeah, the only American jobs these H-1B workers create are low-paying jobs like baristas to serve the H-1B dudes coffee and warehouse workers to ship the product.

Where did you go to school? The big companies are far more likely to hire from the top tier schools.

As a fellow victim of bullying, though mine was far more pervasive and ongoing, I would tend to agree with you, except for the possibility of doxing the wrong people. There are enough double-plus evil trolls out there who can hack someone else's account and use it to do their trolling that there is too high of a chance of retaliating against the wrong people. In schools that have adopted no tolerance rules against bullying, the truly evil have started accusing the innocent of bullying them, thus using the system to do the bullying for them. This is why a more measured response, with LOTS of due diligence is called for. It may not be as immediately gratifying, but it is part of the foundation that makes society civilized. Yes, even though our current legal system is a mess.

Have you thought about Microsoft OneNote? It is free now. All you do is everyone opens the same file over a network share. If you have touch screens or graphics tablets, you can all draw at the same time. It only takes a second or two to catch up.

Determination is more important than talent. I always had a lot of natural talent so a lot of things were easy for me. I expected things to always be easy. They weren't. I got frustrated easily. Make sure she doesn't think she can glide through life on talent alone. Minimize the role of talent, emphasize determination.

Teach her to determine who she wants to be and then be determined to be that person regardless of critics, naysayers, or the status quo.

Teach her to determine who can help her reach her goals and then be determined to convince them to help her. Due to my natural talents, ALL of my teachers just assumed that I would be fine with no help. This left me clueless about anything that wasn't in a book. Now, I read a lot of books so I knew a lot of stuff, but there aren't books about how to get other project members to do their share our even what to do when they won't. No books about getting into grad school really tell you what you really need to know. She will need mentors. She should be determined to find them. Independence is great but help is better.

Finally, tell her not to be afraid to use your death to get the help she needs. She can say, "If my dad were still alive, he would help me with this. But he died last year, so can you help me with this?" If that's what it takes to get people to help her, she should do it. However, she should be determined to do all the actual work on her own. Guidance is good. Getting people to do her work for her is bad.