It depends on what needs to be created (Score 1)

I have been a guitarist for over 40 years. My experience teaching music to all ages of people is that younger people do seem to attack things with a higher level of energy. I have also been a programmer for 20 years, and I now manage developers. The similarities between music and programming are astounding. They are both very abstract vehicles used to accomplish something that only resembles the task at hand in physical ways. In music, the initial task is to create sound with an instrument. As the years go by, and if there is an artist involved in the process, the sound begins to take on a meaning that transcends the physical action of playing. That musical meaning is what causes one to "study" a piece of music for an entire lifetime. I have been playing some pieces for 30 years. It usually takes about a week to memorize about a page of music. Depending on the composition, the rest of the time is to understand not only the intention of the composer - ranging itself from zero to infinite meaning - but to find the relationship of the music to what an individual wants to express. Software is pretty much the same thing. When I first started programming, I didn't understand the architecture of complex systems. I was able to attack small jobs with a tenacity that always resulted in a working solution. I shudder to think of the the poor bast...s that must now be supporting that code. However, that doesn't invalidate the work I did. I pulled companies out of big deadline troubles back in those days, and that kept the money flowing in. If I had known then what I know now, I would have insisted in designing a robust, supportable system. It would not have been completed in time to meet the demands of the customer, and I would have been fired. If you want quick work with some innovation that might not have had the test of time, young people can often provide that much faster than those who are experienced, and can't work like a bull in a pasture filled with cows in heat. Although, to extend that analogy somewhat, I still dream about having that opportunity :-)