I can't imagine that there will be a time in my life where I'm going to want to stop building stuff. I might "retire" and work on my own stuff or FOSS or something, but can't imagine that I would retire as in not work on something constructive. My dad is in his 60s and is the same way so I'm expecting that attitude isn't going to change.
I don't suspect finances to be a sticking point for myself either. I enjoy what I do, and don't imagine that will change. There are things that make what I do less enjoyable, such as meetings, this years flavor of workflow management practices, project management, et al. However, there is satisfaction in building things, discovering new things, and a satisfaction in being a part of something that helps to improve peoples lives. Similarly, my father in his 60s has managed to find things to keep him busy and is continually teaching himself new things after work as his father before him. I don't expect my desire to work and learn to ever fade; just who, and what I work for.
No. The older crowd has seen its share of Ponzi schemes and economic bubbles and is simply less naive.
This. I've all but given up warning my younger friends and colleagues. Wisdom is earned, not given after all.
I have posted this citation by Carmack in a comment on recent article on DX11, but it seems to be very much relevant here as well, so I'll re-post it - especially as TFS mentions Carmack's opinion circa 1997 (which favorably matches with the point of the article), but conveniently omits the more recent comment. Here it is:
"DX9 is really quite a good API level. Even with the D3D side of things, where I know I have a long history of people thinking I'm antagonistic against it. Microsoft has done a very, very good job of sensibly evolving it at each step—they're not worried about breaking backwards compatibility—and it's a pretty clean API. I especially like the work I'm doing on the 360, and it's probably the best graphics API as far as a sensibly designed thing that I've worked with."
lol, he didn't DITCH the API. He just doesn't have an issue using either one.
The dumb thing about this study is that they ask women if they have a G-spot.
Shit, with that methodology and the right sample population I can prove that men don't have prostate glands or spleens.
1 Mole = 007 Secret Agents