In occupations with histories reaching back generations -- medicine, for instance, or even public relations -- professionals have been able to look to senior personnel for guidance about career paths. Not so with information technology, an industry of relatively recent vintage. But understandably, IT professionals still wonder what to expect if they choose to devote their entire career to IT.

In fact, this topic was posed to MSN Careers members: Is it possible to have a lifetime career in IT?

"Can anyone imagine retiring from a 30 or 40-year career in IT at age 65?" wrote MSN Careers member EsTeeJay, who initiated the discussion. "With distinction and accomplishment? With a comfortable retirement?"

There are lots of different answers to these questions, but IT professionals generally say it requires savvy career management, networking and maybe some luck to thrive as a computer professional over the long-term. What's more, unless you know a specific industry very well, such as defense or healthcare, or choose to move into management, a lifetime career path may be an uphill struggle. Some techies are pessimistic about their prospects, citing outsourcing of IT projects overseas and workplace competition from H-1B visa holders. Others see this pessimism as a symptom of the current economic downturn.

"It's a great question, but it's still a theoretical question," says Phil Preston, 49, who started to work with computers while in the Navy in the early 1970s. "I'm really the first generation to come up spending their whole career in the IT industry, and I'm a ways from retirement."

To Preston, now senior vice president of Comforce Corp., the staffing firm, a conscious effort at career management is essential to thriving in the industry. That's true even during boom times, when in-demand workers can move from job to job and demand salary hikes. "A lot of people in the 1990s got caught up in the job market, or lost sight of the fact that you need to manage your career," he says. "There are a lot of people who considered themselves IT professionals in the 1990s who will never work in the industry again."

But others see economic factors working against the idea of a lifetime IT career.

Linda Nesheim, 50, has been in the industry for 26 years, consulting for the last 19 of these as a mainframe programmer. When she got started, no one who was her current age, she says, was working as a programmer. And she doesn't think US citizens will be doing so 10 years from now. "Because of the H-1B and offshoring, I don't believe my job will be around," she says.

EsTeeJay pointed toward the "exceptional volatility" of the skills being valued by companies as one factor making it difficult for individuals to stay in the field.

One key to longevity in the IT industry may be an ability to take charge of your career, no matter what the state of the economy or your current company's business. "You have to keep yourself trained even if management will not pay for it," says Edward Pilling, who participated in the discussion. "You have to have one critical skill set that is in need."