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To me, being a late adopter is obviously the best path to take. I'm honestly perplexed by devs who are so obsessed with the idea of being the first to hop on a
by tboyd47 11y ago
To me, being a late adopter is obviously the best path to take. I'm honestly perplexed by devs who are so obsessed with the idea of being the first to hop on a bandwagon. What do you get out of it?
The wisest time for a dev to learn a new technology is probably at the peak of its popularity. That way, you learn from the community when it's most active, and your expertise grows more valuable as the technology slowly goes out of style. Like the author, this happened to me when I first picked up Rails in 2008-2009. I jumped on board at a time when everyone was talking about it, so I never had to look hard to find information. For the next 5 years or so, it seemed like my job prospects were getting better and better, even though the hype train had left Rails behind shortly after.
I have a pet theory that a lot of the shiny-toy syndrome we see in web development is actually fueled by startup founders who deliberately choose unproven technologies to attract talented developers ("Join us, we actually use language XYZ in production!"), since programming geniuses are often eager to delve into Turing tar-pits, and also dazzle tech journalists by promoting it as their magical secret ingredient. (...and yes, I'm aware that perhaps Rails rose to popularity this way)
- shubb 11y agoEarly adopting a tech that becomes important = being an rare, high paid experienced expert when it goes mainstream. Also, these technologies are generally designed to solve some problem, and get adoption because it's a common problem. Struggling with a solved problem rather than using that new tool that solves it is upsetting.
- falcolas 11y agoBut it's a gamble. If it fails (and so many do, in a month or a year), then you have a head full of domain specific knowledge that you can't apply to any other technology. Let's take web templating: How many solutions are out there, and how many of those actually turned out to be winners? To ride the crest of the React wave, you had to pick it out of a thousand others, at a time when there were other "winning" solutions. And even React is beginning to show signs of falling, with new stars starting to shine. Do you jump ship, or hold the course?
- AnimalMuppet 11y agoI don't think it's that simple. When starting a project, of the available options, which one gives you the most leverage toward building what you're trying to build? What is the cost of using that (training people plus machine resources)? Pick the best cost/benefit tradeoff and start to work. For an existing project, the bias is to not change unless the new language gives you a massive improvement. Re-writing is always harder than you expect, because the existing code base has more bug fixes and handled corner cases than you think it does, and your re-write has to preserve all of that (or suffer the consequences of failing to do so).
- tboyd47 11y agoIf it were just about trading costs and benefits, you wouldn't see fashions and fads in tech like you do. There's a definite herd effect. Some people wear themselves out trying to be at the front of the herd all the time, when it's enough just not to be at the very back.