After the dot-com bubble many people were not hired again. We are not even five years out from the greatest recession in many decades. Many of these people have fundamental technical skills. They might know more perl than most and not have much love for ruby hipsters, but they understand the permanent aspects of programming and related disciplines, like the logic behind it. I think a lot of this comes down to Silicon Valley's ageism problem (you know the one no one here ever talks about). There are many technical workers who people think are outdated, despite being responsible for the first P.C. and later internet revolution. For the record, I am 24, and such things do not affect me. But I think opinion here might be skewed on an age basis.