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This. It's also really difficult to build a mastery of things when you're constantly moving from one piece of code to another according to shifting priorities.

This. It's also really difficult to build a mastery of things when you're constantly moving from one piece of code to another according to shifting priorities. And once you build mastery of $fwk/$lib/$tool, it's deprecated and you migrate to another one. GOTO START

pdimitar 6y ago
Sadly yes. I really want to... stand still for a bit and learn things properly, you know?
zmmmmm 6y ago
> It's also really difficult to build a mastery of things when you're constantly moving from one piece of code to another Conversely, it's surprisingly difficult to get engineers to master things they aren't intrinsically interested in. We've had a stable tech stack and core architecture for 4+ years and one of my major challenges is to stop employees constantly trying to introduce $new/$shiny or major refactor X because it wasn't built how they personally would have done it and get them to just learn and understand the stack we already have - which addresses all our needs at most 5% less optimally than $new/$shiny.
- danieltillett 6y ago
  When someone’s future salary is tied to acquiring $new/$shiny skill then you are going to get this sort of rational behaviour from the engineers. Smart people respond to incentives.
- pdimitar 6y ago
  This is very logical because engineers know they can be fired any minute with zero recourse. Inevitably, they want to invest part of their current work time into being able to to apply for the next job. If people have a good social safety net and a good job security, the depth of their skills improves by a lot.
  - zmmmmm 6y ago
    You make a really good point about the relationship between job security and motivation and commitment. In my case we actually do employ people under medium to long term contracts, so this is less of a factor. But I think the phenonemon you mention is widespread and endemic in the IT industry which definitely contributes to the technology fetishism and resume building type dysfunctional behaviours that plague us.

pdimitar 6y ago

Sadly yes. I really want to... stand still for a bit and learn things properly, you know?

zmmmmm 6y ago

> It's also really difficult to build a mastery of things when you're constantly moving from one piece of code to another Conversely, it's surprisingly difficult to get engineers to master things they aren't intrinsically interested in. We've had a stable tech stack and core architecture for 4+ years and one of my major challenges is to stop employees constantly trying to introduce $new/$shiny or major refactor X because it wasn't built how they personally would have done it and get them to just learn and understand the stack we already have - which addresses all our needs at most 5% less optimally than $new/$shiny.

danieltillett 6y ago
When someone’s future salary is tied to acquiring $new/$shiny skill then you are going to get this sort of rational behaviour from the engineers. Smart people respond to incentives.
pdimitar 6y ago
This is very logical because engineers know they can be fired any minute with zero recourse. Inevitably, they want to invest part of their current work time into being able to to apply for the next job. If people have a good social safety net and a good job security, the depth of their skills improves by a lot.
- zmmmmm 6y ago
  You make a really good point about the relationship between job security and motivation and commitment. In my case we actually do employ people under medium to long term contracts, so this is less of a factor. But I think the phenonemon you mention is widespread and endemic in the IT industry which definitely contributes to the technology fetishism and resume building type dysfunctional behaviours that plague us.