1. A method, implemented by a processor, of implementing programmable priority encoding to track relative age order of operations in a scheduler queue, the method comprising: maintaining, in the scheduler queue, an ancestry table including a plurality of consecutively numbered row entries and a plurality of consecutively numbered columns, each row entry including one bit in each of the columns, wherein the column number of each bit having a select logic value indicates an operation that is older than an operation associated with the number of the row entry that the bit resides in; using pickers in the processor to pick an operation that is ready for execution based on the age of the operation as designated by the ancestry table without using a programmable priority encoder comprised by the pickers; and using the programmable priority encoder to pick an operation if the oldest operation is not eligible to be picked.