I agree. I'm getting better by leaps and bounds every month ( I have been programming full time for about 3 years). I'm excited by how much I will know in 10 years. It is weird that you don't see a lot of really good programmers in their 40's and 50's I could see how, if I continue growing like I am now, most programming jobs I know of would be an easy coast. Why don't people do that.
This is going to come off as pompous, but I wonder if its just that you don't see a lot of nerdy hackers continuing into their 40's. I can think of a bunch of programmers from DC who were in their 40's and 50's , they were mostly government workers and enterprise type programmers, I doubt those types continue pushing and exploring.
Keep in mind that with most things the rate of improvement is much faster in the beginning and slows down as a greater level of mastery is acquired.
I've been doing this for about 4 years. I'd program at work, and then I'd come home and read books on programming, architecture, etc. When I didn't feel like that, I'd be learning a new language. When I didn't feel like doing that, I'd be writing some software to do this or that.
I want to continue to get better as much as ever, but now most of what I see, I've already seen. New things to learn come by less frequently than they did before. It's not that people in their 40's and 50's give up and just coast, it's that it's a case of diminishing returns.
Once you know a decent amount of languages, you see the commonalities and the point of it begins to fade, and how many books can you read on OOP or functional programming? Good coding style? Project management? When you're at the phase when every sentence in the book is a worthwhile lesson it's easy to learn fast. When lessons come through slow experience, like lessons from maintaining a project for 15 years, things go more slowly.
This is going to come off as pompous, but I wonder if its just that you don't see a lot of nerdy hackers continuing into their 40's. I can think of a bunch of programmers from DC who were in their 40's and 50's , they were mostly government workers and enterprise type programmers, I doubt those types continue pushing and exploring.