In <a href="http://ajaxian.com/archives/ajaxlife-a-second-life-ajax-client">one of my recent posts on Ajaxian</a>, I wrote about a 15-year old developer that created an impressive web-based client for Second Life. I was truly amazed at how young people are becoming more proficient in technology and especially application development.

In a recent comment, though, I was a bit taken aback by something that another developer said:


<blockquote>i am 18 and already worked for a company(as a web developer) for 2 years,i start working when i was 15 in tripcart.com,too bad i need to go to the army(i live in Israel).

The age doesn&apos;t matter,it is the skills that matter,and young people get things faster,it is the same as a kid can learn a language(a natural one) very fast compared to a older person.</blockquote>

In the last paragraph, <a href="http://www.urielkatz.com/">Uriel Katz</a> states that "young people get things faster". Huh?!

Now, I do agree that young people have the fire to learn something new and for many developers, that&apos;s something that seems to slowly diminish as they get older. But the assertion that young developers get work done faster is a bit far fetched. Having worked in IT for almost 20 years now, I&apos;ve seen my fair share of young bucks that have been not only slow but extremely sloppy in their work. I also feel that experience counts for quite a bit when developing applications.

What&apos;s your take on this?