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It's always like this. I'm lucky enough to have been around the industry for a while. I could probably count a dozen or more things that started out "Like X, o

It's always like this. I'm lucky enough to have been around the industry for a while. I could probably count a dozen or more things that started out "Like X, only without all the BS!" --- only to end up with just as much BS or more than X ever had.

DenisM 8y ago
It's an anthropological effect, not a technological one. A new generation of craftsmen faces a choice between submitting to the rules of the old guard and making up their own rules. Reduced complexity is often a rallying cry, but I think the root of the phenomenon is in trying to find one's own social and professional standing in the situation where all the prominent positions are already taken and what little is left requires years of hard labor (complexity, certification, corporate review system, etc). If this situation upsets you consider the alternatives, they might be worse.
- DanielBMarkham 8y ago
  Agreed. Tech is ripe for applied group psychology and anthropology. The social, psychological, and anthropological factors are obvious to casual observers -- but completely invisible to the people they affect the most. There's a reason for it, and perhaps overall it's a good thing....but that still doesn't mean that it can't be accepted and acknowledged as a facet of the community.
- rwallace 8y ago
  This reminds me of when I first read about fractals: a collection of phenomena I've been staring at all my life, but never really saw until someone pointed out how to see them. Currently popular music mostly sounds like noise to me, but that's not the point. What are the current generation of musicians supposed to do, be silent and spend their lives listening to the great bands of my youth? It's impossible to match Pink Floyd in the style of Pink Floyd. They need a new style. Facebook is losing traffic to whatever is the latest trend in social media, not really because people are suddenly paranoid about privacy, but because each generation needs a network where the previous generation is not. And for as long as humans write programs, there will be a need to invent new languages, not because the old languages were technically inadequate, but because each generation of programmers needs a way to escape the shadow of the previous generation, the way acorns need squirrels to carry them away from the shadow of oak trees.
  - scns 8y ago
    Love the analogy with the squirrels
  - DenisM 8y ago
    Exactly. It's not just music, consider modern and post-modern art. Even earlier art can be seen as a form of protest against the tyranny of the establishment of yore. It's interest to see which parts of our civilization came which side of the divide. Market economy, for example is a great way for a young enterprising person to find their own footing away from the old (hence startups). Academia OTOH went totally the other way (hence grad school).
  - zippitydoodah68 8y ago
    ..and this is the problem. The assertions of escape. I don't understand it. I would write prose the same way Jack Vance (did) and Gene Wolfe (does) if I could write. There can be one true way for the expression of logical thought. We can try exceptional dialects but they fail because they cannot encompass every concept we should expect and they cater to the ego and domain. OTOH, the young always have a fresh perspective and they usually have good ideas based on the times. They should be listened to and mentored. Very few active older (1995+) folks left in IT ,after the method management and purposeful purging methods of the last 10 years, to mentor them. Most of us weren't great at teaching anyway. It was a paycheck.
Moru 8y ago
Yes, this is not only about tech-sector. You see it everywhere there is humans. There is always new people thinking that why do they do everything so stupid? I can do it much better if I do it this way. Sometimes they are right and everyone is happy, sometimes they do it exactly the same way it was done ages ago and found out to be inefficient or fail in some way and they get to hear "There was a reason we did it the other way". I try to explain why we do things the way we do and if they still want to try to change things, I make sure it's easy to go back again in case it fails the usual way.
eeZah7Ux 8y ago
No, not always. Some communities tend to do their research and web developers have a decades-old track record for not doing that.
aldanor 8y ago
“X for Humans!” ©

DenisM 8y ago

It's an anthropological effect, not a technological one. A new generation of craftsmen faces a choice between submitting to the rules of the old guard and making up their own rules. Reduced complexity is often a rallying cry, but I think the root of the phenomenon is in trying to find one's own social and professional standing in the situation where all the prominent positions are already taken and what little is left requires years of hard labor (complexity, certification, corporate review system, etc). If this situation upsets you consider the alternatives, they might be worse.

DanielBMarkham 8y ago
Agreed. Tech is ripe for applied group psychology and anthropology. The social, psychological, and anthropological factors are obvious to casual observers -- but completely invisible to the people they affect the most. There's a reason for it, and perhaps overall it's a good thing....but that still doesn't mean that it can't be accepted and acknowledged as a facet of the community.
rwallace 8y ago
This reminds me of when I first read about fractals: a collection of phenomena I've been staring at all my life, but never really saw until someone pointed out how to see them. Currently popular music mostly sounds like noise to me, but that's not the point. What are the current generation of musicians supposed to do, be silent and spend their lives listening to the great bands of my youth? It's impossible to match Pink Floyd in the style of Pink Floyd. They need a new style. Facebook is losing traffic to whatever is the latest trend in social media, not really because people are suddenly paranoid about privacy, but because each generation needs a network where the previous generation is not. And for as long as humans write programs, there will be a need to invent new languages, not because the old languages were technically inadequate, but because each generation of programmers needs a way to escape the shadow of the previous generation, the way acorns need squirrels to carry them away from the shadow of oak trees.
- scns 8y ago
  Love the analogy with the squirrels
- DenisM 8y ago
  Exactly. It's not just music, consider modern and post-modern art. Even earlier art can be seen as a form of protest against the tyranny of the establishment of yore. It's interest to see which parts of our civilization came which side of the divide. Market economy, for example is a great way for a young enterprising person to find their own footing away from the old (hence startups). Academia OTOH went totally the other way (hence grad school).
- zippitydoodah68 8y ago
  ..and this is the problem. The assertions of escape. I don't understand it. I would write prose the same way Jack Vance (did) and Gene Wolfe (does) if I could write. There can be one true way for the expression of logical thought. We can try exceptional dialects but they fail because they cannot encompass every concept we should expect and they cater to the ego and domain. OTOH, the young always have a fresh perspective and they usually have good ideas based on the times. They should be listened to and mentored. Very few active older (1995+) folks left in IT ,after the method management and purposeful purging methods of the last 10 years, to mentor them. Most of us weren't great at teaching anyway. It was a paycheck.

Moru 8y ago

Yes, this is not only about tech-sector. You see it everywhere there is humans. There is always new people thinking that why do they do everything so stupid? I can do it much better if I do it this way. Sometimes they are right and everyone is happy, sometimes they do it exactly the same way it was done ages ago and found out to be inefficient or fail in some way and they get to hear "There was a reason we did it the other way". I try to explain why we do things the way we do and if they still want to try to change things, I make sure it's easy to go back again in case it fails the usual way.

eeZah7Ux 8y ago

No, not always. Some communities tend to do their research and web developers have a decades-old track record for not doing that.

aldanor 8y ago