> A lot of older programmers seem to think they have 20 years of experience, when they only have the same year of experience 20 times.

A lot of younger programmers seems to think they have 3 years of experience, when they only have the same month of experience 36 times.

Experience is made up by the experiences you had, if you have never worked in a proper environment or never actually tried to improve your craft, years doesn't matter much.

And the myth of "being up to date", it can mean different things for different people. Sadly sometimes it just means that you need to have played with the latest fad that will disappear in a few years. In that case i'd prefer someone that's not up to date but can learn something different and it's used to do things the proper way.