Anyway, what I'm focused on now is web development. There's nothing to stop us from learning this stuff. All of the important training materials for these technologies are on line or on Safari. There is a pretty steep learning curve, and expect it to take a while to become really proficient at it, but go for it.

And, I've spent the last 3 years paying off debt, moving to Silicon Valley, and getting ready to be a founder as soon as I'm done with school. So, don't let the kids scare you off. Dive on in, the water's great. :)

Five years ago I proposed - and was awarded - a research project at work (internal r&d money). I chose at that time to use Python to develop a tool to design airspace for air traffic control purposes. I didn't know Python other than having played with it in console mode. In my experience it was the language to use, and it worked like a champ for us.

I'll "retire" in 15 years. When I do so, I fully intend to be employable at that time (re: current).

Start now. Get into it. 33 isn't too old to start, but it is too young to stop.

Btw, I have a BS in applied math from a small state college - Keene State College in NH. Degrees from good schools might help, but passion for what you do can go a very long way. (^_^) Go for it and good luck!!!!

I'll quote Drucker again here: "Concentrate on what you're good at." At 33, you've probably got a decent amount of experience in the business world, plus some additional formal education. Work on finding and solving problems that aren't apparent to the young turks just out of college, because they don't have the work experience. I'm 26 and I've had 2 salaried jobs, both in the computer field. There are whole industries that I've never worked in - those are probably ripe for a web solution, because you don't have swarms of college kids picking over every opportunity.

Don't expect to compete in the web2.0/social networking sphere. The kids that are 2 years out of college still have friends in that demographic, they grew up with the technology, and so they know more about both the technology and the market. Look for markets that all the young technophiles know nothing about.

The stuff that happened after we were funded (I've left the company) probably had a lot to do with my age, and the type of conventional wisdom (i.e. bullshit) that is out there and espoused by some of these commenters.

Remember that on the internet, noone knows you're a dog (or an old dog).

My project is at http://surftrackr.net/ It won't ever make me rich, but (a) that's not the point, and (b) it's my way of making a contribution. While there are programmers out there who can do a better or worse job than I have, I can guarantee the differentiating factor is not their age.

I will admit though, that a)starting late b)not having a formal education in computer sciences is a little frustrating at times. I spend my evenings trying to play catch up with those who had a head start (reading up on compilers, language design, even SICP). Don't get me wrong, I am still as fascinated with computers as I was 8 years ago (I turn 30 today, the 1st actually), but every time I read a brilliant comment on a language or a framework on YC News, I know I have a long way to go before I will have that level of competence and understanding.

To answer your question, I don't think its never too late to pursue your passion. In the long run, when you look back, you would rather see having spent time doing things you loved to do, rather than spending a majority of your life as a zombie, in pursuit of a paycheck than anything else.

From another late starter, I can only wish you the very best.

It has nothing to do with age.

The advice about not trying to compete in the "web2.0/social" market I think is a good one regardless of age. It's far too crowded with "me too" startups and most business models rely only on advertising or hopes of getting bought before loosing too much money.

PG said it best, "build something people want": it's the hardest thing for a start up to do. So the idea of all these hidden opportunities just kills me. If someone wants to start a website that publishes these type of ideas, you'll have me as a user.

IMO the people who do the best are those that have more than one area of expertise. In other words: no business wants to buy software. They don't care about it at all. What they want is something that will help their business, and someone who knows both the software and the business is better able to connect the two.

BTW, ditch the PHP and Mysql and look at some other stuff like Ruby on Rails, Django, Postgresql, and, yes, Javascript. Some PHP won't hurt, but I don't think it's the "state of the art", although you can certainly still get things done with it.

As a 42 year old developer, I say go for it. You have other skills you bring with you. Frankly, these days I look for people who demonstrate maturity and life-long learning skills more then I do a specific skill-set.

PHP isn't nearly as bad as it's made out to be, especially PHP5. It has a horrible reputation due to some very bad design 'decisions' made early on, but it has got a lot better.

I was talking with some of the core devs on #drupal last night and plenty of them are well aware of RoR and its utility -- web applications are very easy to write and deploy in Rails, but a big modular CMS like Drupal takes a lot of work to do it right. It's iterative, it benefits from a network effect in terms of modules, and frankly it kicks the shit out of Radiant, Bricolage, and any other solution I've used (including hand-rolled jobbies) for that particular problem. So, right tool for the job... it's surprising to me that 'Drupal developers can write their own ticket' because it's actually very easy to use and code to.

Ruby and Rails are beginning to (unjustly IMHO) get the same sort of scrutiny simply because bad programmers can use them to quickly create dogshit. It's not the fault of the language, not unless you're using it for the wrong purpose.

Python never seems to have got popular enough to attract morons, and thus continues to chug merrily along at Google and elsewhere. The last day I wrote something interesting in Perl was the first day I ported something interesting to Python. I never really looked at Perl the same way again. It has some truly horrific design decisions that can make it easier to write horrible ugly code than to write good code.

But, again -- tis a poor craftsman who blames his tools. Having at least a passing familiarity with the strengths and weaknesses of various popular tools never hurt anyone.

Props to you! I've been doing quite a bit of Drupal development over the past year and I haven't met that many people who would say it was very easy. Not to put down drupal, I love it, but easy... eh. Worth the effort, thats my take on it...

I firmly believe that we as humans all are creative. And that expressing our creativity, our imagination, our mind allows us to be less unhappy. I like programming because it is a creative form of writing - taking half-baked requirements and turning it into something people might find of value/help their daily job/life. I read once that the IDE or your editor is like a word processor for abstraction - the building and invariancing of data structures.

My point here is it sounds like you enjoy programming at an emotional, mental, and maybe even spiritual level. I think you'll do fine - the young bright things probably are still learning that there is more to life than technology. My second point here is you won't regret taking on this suite of opportunities.

And when you talk about your job, please don't tell them you are a programmer. Ask the person asking "what do you do for a living" what they do when they use a computer - and tell them you make that stuff work (and ask them if they have any ideas of stuff that could be useful for them)

To be honest, I have had the same question in my head for some time now, and your question helped me too. Thank you.

Did my first startup at 46 and in my fifties I am still going strong. Long as you are committed to life long learning then age is as they say but a number.

You've already answered your own question. Continue tasting.

Just today I was reading an article in a spanish magazine about people on their thirties that completely changed their career following their dreams.

Examples: - a psychologist that left to work for a NGO (29 y.o) - a lawyer how left to be an actor (33 y.o.) - a shop manager that left to study physiotherapy (30 y.o.) - and telecom engineer that left to study audiovisual communication (32 y.o.)

All of them are quite happy. And you may be on a similar list someday.

Leonardc, put your armor plate, take your sword and go to kill the dragon! Er, I mean, go to program webs!

Other than that, neither compilers nor users know or care how old you are. Make something people want and you'll be fine.

She said she wished she'd starting taking violin lessons when she was sixty, since then she would have been playing the violin for forty years.

Its more important what state the mind is in than what body the mind is in!!!