This just goes back to the "people as resources" (which is code word for developers are widgets) garbage that constantly comes up within organizations, etc, it wouldn't surprise me at all if creativityhurts is a manager of some sort. People are unique, not drones, some have a naturally higher aptitude and interest in programming than others as well as other factors such as intelligence. IMO a programmer who loves what they do and spends time working on their craft outside of their 9-5 job can quickly outpace a more experienced programmer who has little passion and just does it "because its their job". I've seen this first-hand that some people with years and years of experience just don't have that enthusiasm for software development, as soon as you talk to them about a concept that they aren't already familiar with through sheer rote memorization they either lose interest completely or just can't seem to catch on. That said, obviously if you take 2 developers who have similar attributes as far as aptitude, intelligence and enthusiasm but 1 has 10 years more experience than the other, than yes, of course, the one with more experience is going to be better overall.