Moving forward with work on the D language and foundation

[Chris Wright via Digitalmars-d-announce]

On Wed, 09 Dec 2015 05:40:47 +0000, Tony wrote:

> On Friday, 28 August 2015 at 13:08:36 UTC, Chris wrote:
>> On Friday, 28 August 2015 at 12:28:43 UTC, Russel Winder wrote:
>>> On Thu, 2015-08-27 at 16:01 +0000, BBasile via Digitalmars-d-announce
>>> wrote:
>>>> […]
>>>> 
>>>> That's courageous, particularly past 50 yo. It's a different culture,
>>>> past 50 yo in Europe people choose security, but in USA, past 50 yo
>>>> some people still take the risk to try something new. Awesome.
>>>
>>> I say "bollocks" to your accusation that Europeans post 50 are a bunch
>>> of useless idiots.
>>>
>>> I call double "bollocks" on the claim that only in the USA do people
>>> do anything.
>>
>> I agree (I think it's the first time I agree with you!). Age is a state
>> of mind. I've seen people in their 20ies who only think about a pension
>> plan and watch TV every evening until they fall asleep.
> 
> But in general, people slow down mentally as they age. Most US companies
> - and Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook is leading the charge with his FWD.us
> lobby group  - would prefer the government give them the capability to
> hire an unlimited amount of 25 year old foreign programmers instead of
> them having to hire 50 year old American programmers.

25-year-old people are more likely to work unpaid overtime. They 
generally get lower salaries. They're less likely to have families, which 
means lower health insurance costs. They're less likely to think about 
retirement, which means companies can advertise 401k matching as a 
competitive benefit without having to pay as much.

The assertion that people slow down mentally as they age is pretty vague. 
While senescence does have mental effects, that wouldn't be hitting 
significantly at the age of 50 unless you have early onset Alzheimer's or 
the like. If there are some other effects impacting productivity, there 
are benefits to an extra 25 years of experience.