Starting over at 39

If you want to make money you will have to have people skills. You have to talk to people about getting a job and you have to talk to people if you want to be a contractor, so you can get clients as far as your age its only a number. After all winetaste better as it ages...

You can't fake your way through an interview without having SOME people skills.

I'm 39 (at least for a couple more months) and got my BS degree in Computer Information Systems about 2 1/2 years ago. I wasn't the greatest speaker, but read books and listened to audio tapes on what I was doing wrong. You'd be surprized at how people-oriented you can become when you gain the confidence to carry on a simple conversation with a co-worker or someone in your family.

People skills help unless you can show that you are one of the world's top ten programmers in an esoteric yet highly desired field.

If you want to learn one aspect of people skills, take a couple of psychology and sociology courses so you can learn the hows and whys of human 'programming'.

Another tactic would be to visit a good sized book store and look at books on salesmanship and self-improvement. They often deal with people skills at various levels.