I got my (master's) degree at 34 years of age. Mind you, I had started the studies much sooner and have been working in IT all the time. I got the degree mostly in order to pass formal requirements which many companies deploy to narrow down the number of applicants. It has not changed my life but especially in harsher market situations you get a better edge. On the other hand, I've never had a job that I didn't get by recommendation or contacts, so I don't really know how much it matters.

In Sweden where I live, unions also have quite a large impact on salary levels and having a formal degree makes it easier to qualify for higher levels of payment, especially in large companies. It's not as if it's impossible without, but it removes one obstacle that a manager otherwise would have to make some argument for.

As someone else says, you'll be that age soon anyway. The question to ask yourself is if there some other way to get more value of your time. And I'd take a university degree rather than any number of certifications.

> These days, e.g. Python is installed everywhere you need to go.

Sorry, but no, it isn't.

The issue of routing table poisoning isn't exactly previously unknown, and I guess quite a few have at some point suffered from problems with incorrect routing tables, which is essentially the same thing, though unintentional. There are techniques for limiting the problem, and I believe the "wasn't believed practical" to a rather high extent still holds for real purposes. I may be proven wrong.