4 ms·

> Personally, my goals are to have an interesting job (i.e. using a modern tech stack) I always wonder why using a modern tech is interesting? Let's say there'

by badpun 7y ago

> Personally, my goals are to have an interesting job (i.e. using a modern tech stack) I always wonder why using a modern tech is interesting? Let's say there's a job where you're using J2EE 1.4 or some other outdated technology from the early 2000s. The thing is, I remember when that technology was hot shit and people considered working on it very interesting. So, it looks like, over the course of time, doing the very same task, with the same day-to-day activities, went from interesting to uninteresting?

redisman 7y ago
I think it's mostly job security. I've worked on many technologies that I really enjoyed despite the flaws that every tech has (Flash for example) that have 0 jobs 10 years later.
- enraged_camel 7y ago
  On the other hand, if you are a COBOL expert today, you will be in high demand and will make enormous amounts of money.
  - ido 7y ago
    For a while! Probably a better position for a 55 year old developer to be in than a 25 year old one.
- badpun 7y ago
  Oh yeah, I agree with that - but that's not job being "interesting", that's just job security. I wrote my comment because I felt some disingenuity in the OP saying that jobs with modern tech stacks are interesting for him. It means that he's either genuinely intersted in following the tech frameworks threadmill, and jobs with modern tech stack allow him to do that - or, he's lying to himself that he's intersting in it, to make getting up for work every day a little bit easier.
l_t 7y ago
I think it's a heuristic signal. Old tech stacks are usually used in old projects that solve old problems. I doubt the OP would mind building a J2EE project from scratch to solve a novel problem. But nobody does that -- usually if there is a J2EE job, it's maintenance, which can be less interesting. And if there is a novel problem, it will likely be solved with the current status quo ("modern") technology.
- harimau777 7y ago
  Sorry for the delayed reply. I had missed your guys' posts. For me it's couple of things: My experience has been that newer languages and frameworks tend to be more user friendly. In particular, I tend to enjoy the abstraction and design aspects of programming more than the nuts and bolts technology aspects. So, for example, I find the low level aspects (e.g. memory management) of C annoying and I appreciate that React lets me use all of the abstractions that a programming language provides to define UI. I tend to like functional programming techniques and dislike object oriented ones. FP techniques seem to be popular with the current generation of tech while the previous generation seems to have been dominated by OO. Of course that's not true in every domain and could change in the future. This is a stereotype, but I tend to associate older tech stacks with companies that are more conservative, less innovative/more established, and/or less technology focused. Finally, like you guys have mentioned, newer tech is associated with less maintenance work and greater future job prospects; even if that's just signaling as opposed to being inherent to the technologies themselves.

by badpun 7y ago

redisman 7y ago

I think it's mostly job security. I've worked on many technologies that I really enjoyed despite the flaws that every tech has (Flash for example) that have 0 jobs 10 years later.

enraged_camel 7y ago
On the other hand, if you are a COBOL expert today, you will be in high demand and will make enormous amounts of money.
- ido 7y ago
  For a while! Probably a better position for a 55 year old developer to be in than a 25 year old one.
badpun 7y ago
Oh yeah, I agree with that - but that's not job being "interesting", that's just job security. I wrote my comment because I felt some disingenuity in the OP saying that jobs with modern tech stacks are interesting for him. It means that he's either genuinely intersted in following the tech frameworks threadmill, and jobs with modern tech stack allow him to do that - or, he's lying to himself that he's intersting in it, to make getting up for work every day a little bit easier.

l_t 7y ago

I think it's a heuristic signal. Old tech stacks are usually used in old projects that solve old problems. I doubt the OP would mind building a J2EE project from scratch to solve a novel problem. But nobody does that -- usually if there is a J2EE job, it's maintenance, which can be less interesting. And if there is a novel problem, it will likely be solved with the current status quo ("modern") technology.

harimau777 7y ago
Sorry for the delayed reply. I had missed your guys' posts. For me it's couple of things: My experience has been that newer languages and frameworks tend to be more user friendly. In particular, I tend to enjoy the abstraction and design aspects of programming more than the nuts and bolts technology aspects. So, for example, I find the low level aspects (e.g. memory management) of C annoying and I appreciate that React lets me use all of the abstractions that a programming language provides to define UI. I tend to like functional programming techniques and dislike object oriented ones. FP techniques seem to be popular with the current generation of tech while the previous generation seems to have been dominated by OO. Of course that's not true in every domain and could change in the future. This is a stereotype, but I tend to associate older tech stacks with companies that are more conservative, less innovative/more established, and/or less technology focused. Finally, like you guys have mentioned, newer tech is associated with less maintenance work and greater future job prospects; even if that's just signaling as opposed to being inherent to the technologies themselves.