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I don't think it's unreasonable for people to expect that they should be able to work in a field for the majority of their careers. Retraining is not an effici

by rplst8 9y ago

I don't think it's unreasonable for people to expect that they should be able to work in a field for the majority of their careers. Retraining is not an efficient use of ones productive years.

akie 9y ago
Maybe it’s not unreasonable, but unrealistic?
tigershark 9y ago
I think that if someone chooses engineering then he must love to learn. For me it would be too boring to do the same thing for my whole life, I always try to learn more languages, more paradigms, architectures and whatever. I can jump in the code of a different team and be immediately productive. Usually I suggest and implement small changes that have a large impact on the maintanability of the system as soon as I start to grasp it as a whole. I couldn't ever do it if I stayed in the same field, in the same environment, for all my life. I think that if someone expects to work in a field doing the same thing for the majority of his career then probably should not choose engineering.
- emodendroket 9y ago
  But you are doing the same thing. This is the frustration. I've worked in several languages with various tools and it's very common to just be learning slightly different syntax to approach a problem in the exact same way (and then eventually maybe you'll reach a higher plane where you approach it in a way somewhat characteristic of the tool, but still not fundamentally different). Technologies that really change the way you work or think about problems are few and far between, and most of the algorithms and data structures you'll use most of the time in typical applications were discovered in the 1970s. It's not a big deal to pick up a new tool on the job, but I have a hard time motivating myself to spend free time learning yet another MVC framework or whatever. It's a different story, I guess, if you go into a completely different type of programming from what you're used to (say Web apps to embedded programming), but I don't think that's necessarily easy.
ben_w 9y ago
I think it is unreasonable to expect that, especially in a field where even a decade ago people were saying “50% of the skills on your CV become obsolete every 18 months”.
- emodendroket 9y ago
  If people were saying that a decade ago they were wrong.
  - ben_w 9y ago
    Looks like a lot of people, net, agreed with the claim: https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/44177/what-is-the-single-most-effective-thing-you-did-to-improve-your-programming-skill/44226#44226 https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/4417...
    - emodendroket 9y ago
      This comment seems to be more about putting all your eggs into one basket than the idea that every technology is going to die in a few years. Most of the popular production languages today are 10+ years old, for instance.
      - ben_w 9y ago
        Not every technology, but rather random technology from the set of things-which-currently-look-good-when-seeking-work. Important difference. For example, at one extreme, all tech lasts exactly three years; at one of several other extremes, 50% of tech is eternal and the rest lasts exactly 1.5 years.

by rplst8 9y ago

I don't think it's unreasonable for people to expect that they should be able to work in a field for the majority of their careers. Retraining is not an efficient use of ones productive years.

akie 9y ago

Maybe it’s not unreasonable, but unrealistic?

tigershark 9y ago

I think that if someone chooses engineering then he must love to learn. For me it would be too boring to do the same thing for my whole life, I always try to learn more languages, more paradigms, architectures and whatever. I can jump in the code of a different team and be immediately productive. Usually I suggest and implement small changes that have a large impact on the maintanability of the system as soon as I start to grasp it as a whole. I couldn't ever do it if I stayed in the same field, in the same environment, for all my life. I think that if someone expects to work in a field doing the same thing for the majority of his career then probably should not choose engineering.

emodendroket 9y ago
But you are doing the same thing. This is the frustration. I've worked in several languages with various tools and it's very common to just be learning slightly different syntax to approach a problem in the exact same way (and then eventually maybe you'll reach a higher plane where you approach it in a way somewhat characteristic of the tool, but still not fundamentally different). Technologies that really change the way you work or think about problems are few and far between, and most of the algorithms and data structures you'll use most of the time in typical applications were discovered in the 1970s. It's not a big deal to pick up a new tool on the job, but I have a hard time motivating myself to spend free time learning yet another MVC framework or whatever. It's a different story, I guess, if you go into a completely different type of programming from what you're used to (say Web apps to embedded programming), but I don't think that's necessarily easy.

ben_w 9y ago

I think it is unreasonable to expect that, especially in a field where even a decade ago people were saying “50% of the skills on your CV become obsolete every 18 months”.

emodendroket 9y ago
If people were saying that a decade ago they were wrong.
- ben_w 9y ago
  Looks like a lot of people, net, agreed with the claim: https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/44177/what-is-the-single-most-effective-thing-you-did-to-improve-your-programming-skill/44226#44226 https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/4417...
  - emodendroket 9y ago
    This comment seems to be more about putting all your eggs into one basket than the idea that every technology is going to die in a few years. Most of the popular production languages today are 10+ years old, for instance.
    - ben_w 9y ago
      Not every technology, but rather random technology from the set of things-which-currently-look-good-when-seeking-work. Important difference. For example, at one extreme, all tech lasts exactly three years; at one of several other extremes, 50% of tech is eternal and the rest lasts exactly 1.5 years.