Comment Another Geezer for IOS & Android/Java mobile d (Score 4, Insightful) 360
As a graying 60 plus who also started with Z80 assembler then progressed through Forth, Fortran, Lisp and 7 other languages, I have considerable feel for your situation. However, having endured lots of online discussion about today's 'real programming jobs' being for younger folk, I regret to suggest that full employment is an unlikely outcome (if a nice dream) in the tight financial environment we have all been living through. But I have found personal renewal and significant career and financial payoff in iOS app development for publication, then cross-development for Android, although the iOS payoff has been nearly 10x greater than for a similar Android product. And as one of my renowned neuroscience mentors taught, learning difficult new skills is the best way to keep an aging brain healthy... Fortunately, programming isn't my main career, but my downsized programmer brother (over 10 years my junior) has also had significant recent success learning to program mobile apps (Android) bringing in new income and job prospects. We both started out trying to tap the still hot market for mobile devices, and it would seem a shame to ignore higher-level independent mobile developer prospects if you couldn't land a rare ARM assembly coding job with a commercial firm. But with about 90% of the current coding on my day job being for multi-device web applications (in a world where 20- and 30- something web designers are 'a dime a dozen'), staying flexible and diversified, finding a niche and evolving new applications for new technology seem to have been the most important strategies for long term survival as a programmer.