The story that I've heard repeated often is that developer salaries tend to flatline in a person's 50s and even retreat a bit as they close out their careers, while managerial salaries continue to increase throughout the later years of a career. Whether this is supported by actual data or not, I don't know. I can certainly see the potential for this to happen with developers who get complacent in a long-term job where they've maxed out their career path and then get laid off, which could force them to take a significantly lower-paying job elsewhere. I've transitioned from development into management over the past few years, largely because I'd endured a string of awful managers and was confident I could do a better job. Management is definitely not for everyone, though -- it requires a different set of skills from development, and many developers lack the patience and people skills needed to do the job well. But developers with an interest in and aptitude for management clearly make the best managers for development groups, because they have a deep understanding of the issues their teams face, and they have a much easier time building trust and credibility with the group. In the end, it's really about where your skills and interests lie. Do you have the patience to deal with petty office politics, hand-holding MBAs through repeated explanations of the mythical man month, fielding complaints from your team that you're too focused on schedule and complaints from above that you're not focused enough on schedule? Do you get gratification out of identifying and building on your developers' strengths and helping them earn their way to a promotion? Do you enjoy solving problems related to scoping, sequencing, and balancing of other people's work to define and meet milestones? Do you mind dealing with software licenses, office supply purchases, and other mundane "care & feeding" tasks? Can you be content relegating coding to a hobby activity, rather than your main pursuit? If you answered "yes" to all of the above, then it may be worth considering a management path. If not, then you should stay sharp, stay current, and keep your skills valuable and marketable, regardless of your age.

Same thing here. Our project has been using git for years, much to the chagrin of the least common denominator middle managers in our department. They've been pushing hard to get rid of useful work tools with "funny names" under the guise of a common tools initiative that was always in the bag for Microsoft. This will really stick in their craw. I love it.

This is exactly what I do. It also has the advantage of letting you do the lossy compression on your own terms, so the resulting files don't automatically sound like shit.

Lambda expressions are in fact cool, but anyone who thinks they're new must have been in a coma since the 1930s.

> How about go adopt a kid instead? There's a world full of children that need good parents.

For a lot of people, the major appeal of having children is to mix their DNA with their partner's and see what they get. I would have no interest in raising someone else's child and pretending they were my own.

For the people who do enjoy this, great. I'm sure the children benefit from it.

> Quite frankly, I think it's irresponsible to have children of your own with so many that need the love, protection, and guidance that a good parent could provide.

And with equal frankness, I think it's ridiculous to paint people as being irresponsible simply because their priorities don't match yours. If you're happier raising a used child instead of a new one, bully for you. Other people prefer having sole responsibility for whatever baggage a child is going to carry through their life.

Yeah, that M*A*S*H show sure sucked. And no one on Slashdot liked Buffy or Stargate, obviously...

Estimate the parts required using historical proxies based around size and content. Use historical development time data based on the part estimates. Consolidate the group of smaller estimates for yourself, or ideally across an entire team, to allow estimation error to cancel itself out as much as possible across the group. Now you have a solid estimate of the total effort required, and you just have to map that to the available development hours in each developer's schedule, rebalance as necessary, and see what your end date looks like. Team Software Process

> No, whats funny is that the downloadable game was probably a better game then the 4 disc-based games you purchased.

No, it wasn't, although Super Stardust HD is still a great game.

> The "game drought" may be over, but the "quality game drought" lives on.

It depends on your definition of "quality". The PS3 is currently lagging in extremely high-rated games (90+), but it's doing better than the other current-gen consoles when you look at the percentage of games that rate 75+ or 80+ out of 100. Let me refer you to my other post which goes into more detail.