Programming experience, what is the actual benefit?

Question

I am curious, today when somebody asked I had to sit down and count and realized I have been programming for 32 years! I would like to know your opinion about whether such computer programming related experience is really relevant when applying for a dev position (besides the age thingy) or whether it is more important to have more 'new' experience i.e. latest technologies, trends etc.

Personally when hiring position for a position I would think that knowledge in a particular field is what is important and general "years of programming experience" not so relevant. However one cannot entirely write off the general experience part.

(* I personally like programming and that is mainly the reason why I have avoided management positions, cough there is something compelling talking to a binary machine that knows no sneakiness. *)

EDIT: I think that one should change job every 5 years or so to not get stuck in same old tracks, that way one forces oneself to learn new things. Otherwise there is a tendency to settle in on something and become a product expert instead of a programming expert. When you are married and have commitments these tend to take a lot of time (and energy) that may prevent you to learn new things in your existing job.

Answer 1

Real-world experience and moxie is incredibly underrated when it comes to development.

Answer 2

Relevant Experience on Active Development.

I can hire a guy who has 10 years of experience on maintaining legacy apps or a guy with 3 years of active development in the technology that I am looking for.

Answer 3

Certainly I would expect the quality of code written by someone with 1 years experience to be less than that of someone with 5 years experience. Beyond this I don't know.

Answer 4

To merge the two, I'd like to see a willingness (but not an obsession) with learning new technologies -- and understanding how to properly apply them -- during those many years.

Answer 5

I'm only 19, so experience is not something that I have much of, but I am of the opinion that experience in programming (preferably in multiple languages) and keeping your knowledge current are equally important (and that the two together are much preferable to either one separately).

Answer 6

Unfortunately, IT is driven by hype as well. So, using the latest tools/technologies (which comes out at a speed of light) is more expected than it should be.

Having said that, experience makes people not do things which they will do without experience.

Answer 7

There is a lot of "scar tissue" you develop with programming experience. You learn that certain things need to be done a certain way in order to avoid future headaches. A lot of it is broadly applicable, but a lot of it is also very specific to a particular language or paradigm. You should strive to have a mix of experience over time, as well as "new" experience.

Answer 8

It seems to take about five years to develop good instincts, but not everyone does. Experience is just an opportunity to develop skill, not a guarantee of it. I've recently had to deal with a subordinate who's been programming for much longer than I have, but somehow never became good at it.

He also won't listen to anyone who has less experience; maybe these problems reinforce each other...