Say you want to contribute to a project and find out the only way to do so is by discussing the issue on IRC or the mailing list, then submitting the patch per email.
it wouldn’t surprise me if the majority of those who like those 2 technologies were 40+, maybe even 50+.
I don’t think it should surprise anyone if people with more experience and skills are more comfortable with simple tools than the rest of us. They’ve had more time to find good workflows for those tools, after all.
It might be more interesting to ask why people prefer any one comms method over another. For example, do they like irc/email because they’re old dogs who can’t learn new tricks, or because those are open systems that can’t be taken over by some greedy corporation?
more comfortable with simple tools than the rest of us
That really depends on your definition of “simple”. Swimming across a river is simple, but hard. All you need is your body. Using a boat is easy, but complicated (you need to know how to drive a boat). So yeah, it’s “simple” but it’s not easy, IMO.
