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As a software developer I consider the most important part of my job to be evaluating new tools and techniques. This craft is in its infancy and our profession

As a software developer I consider the most important part of my job to be evaluating new tools and techniques. This craft is in its infancy and our profession borders on complete incompetence when it comes to predictably building usable tools at a reasonable budget. Nobody can afford to miss out on productivity enhancements and that means following trends, but with a critical eye. If someone is "tired" of this process it might be time to consider another profession.

koheripbal 6y ago
And a key component of that is evaluating not learning the new framework. It's a meta analysis on the new tech that can be done in less than a day, rather than spending weeks mastering it just to determine if it fits in your tech stack. Focus is everything. The universe is too infinite to learn everything.
mtts 6y ago
> As a software developer I consider the most important part of my job to be evaluating new tools and techniques. Really? I would argue it’s building software. > This craft is in its infancy We’ve been building software since ... dunno ... 1950s? 1960s? > our profession borders on complete incompetence when it comes to predictably building usable tools at a reasonable budget This is probably true, but I suspect chasing new tools isn’t the solution. I’ve seen a lot of very much with it development teams fail at building stuff because they couldn’t get their shiny new stuff to work predictably. > If someone is "tired" of this process it might be time to consider another profession. On the front end, yes, it’s probably par for the course. I suspect it’s because front end development is even more removed from rigorous engineering practice than back end development. On the back end, however, lots of stuff is still built in Java and C(++) and it all works reasonably well. It’s just not very exciting.

koheripbal 6y ago

And a key component of that is evaluating not learning the new framework. It's a meta analysis on the new tech that can be done in less than a day, rather than spending weeks mastering it just to determine if it fits in your tech stack. Focus is everything. The universe is too infinite to learn everything.

mtts 6y ago

> As a software developer I consider the most important part of my job to be evaluating new tools and techniques. Really? I would argue it’s building software. > This craft is in its infancy We’ve been building software since ... dunno ... 1950s? 1960s? > our profession borders on complete incompetence when it comes to predictably building usable tools at a reasonable budget This is probably true, but I suspect chasing new tools isn’t the solution. I’ve seen a lot of very much with it development teams fail at building stuff because they couldn’t get their shiny new stuff to work predictably. > If someone is "tired" of this process it might be time to consider another profession. On the front end, yes, it’s probably par for the course. I suspect it’s because front end development is even more removed from rigorous engineering practice than back end development. On the back end, however, lots of stuff is still built in Java and C(++) and it all works reasonably well. It’s just not very exciting.