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You can also flip that around. As much as devs try to disagree, technology is not a goal in of itself. Management is an abstraction on top of money in/money ou

You can also flip that around. As much as devs try to disagree, technology is not a goal in of itself. Management is an abstraction on top of money in/money out and if in<out it doesn’t matter if you have the crispest tech, you’re going out of business.

yobbo 5y ago
> As much as devs try to disagree, technology is not a goal in of itself Can you find one dev that has ever disagreed with this?
- brtkdotse 5y ago
  I can find a ton of devs paying lip service disagreeing, but the second they utter “we need to rewrite this in…” the facade falls apart.
  - choeger 5y ago
    Management in turn doesn't pay any attention whatsoever to the technology. They have no idea how quality and productivity is influenced by outdated or poor choices or simply a lack of investment into maintenance. You need people that care about the how you do it as much about the why and the what. Everything else is going to be disfunctional rather soon.
    - sorokod 5y ago
      I would argue that technology is in general not management's responsibility, but resource allocation is. If you care about quality and productivity, please quantify those and present your findings in terms of tradeoffs.
    - Ma8ee 5y ago
      It’s part of your job to explain that to them. And you have to do it in business terms, that is, how it will impact budget and schedule for the project. And prepare for questions like “ok, you have convinced me that Kotlin is superior to Java, but you are the only one in the team with any Kotlin experience, and we have a rather hard deadline for this project in 9 months. Are you hundred percent sure that we will both manage to train the team and deliver in that timeframe? And you know Karl, who’s retiring in a few years, he doesn’t seem to be very eager to learn something new. And he’s a damn productive Java programmer.”
  - rgblambda 5y ago
    When I hear “we need to rewrite this in…”, it's usually because someone isn't familiar with the language it's currently in and wants to switch to the old language/framework they like best. I don't think I've ever actually heard someone trying to advocate for shiny new x just because.
- sorokod 5y ago
  "CV driven development" is a thing. "I am bored with the old framework, let's use the new shiny one" is a thing.
- Ma8ee 5y ago
  I’ve seen countless systems built where technology choices where more exciting than economical. Why build something in c# on top of SQL-server in six months when it can be done in three years with micro services, Kotlin, Cassandra, Kafka, mongoDb etc…
  - brtkdotse 5y ago
    For real. That why I’ve focused my consulting on pure Microsoft stack at insurance companies. My knowledge _acumulates_ for each assignment, rather than having to start over with the tech du jour.
    - pjmlp 5y ago
      Java, .NET and C++ over here. Get to rewrite the micro services, Kotlin, Cassandra, Kafka, mongoDb hardly documented, back into C# on top of SQL Server when the teams have left for the new jobs after haved pimped up their CV.
  - Aeolun 5y ago
    To be fair, this can also be because one random developer suggests this, management hears a fancy new term for their buzzword bingo, and they decree that that tech shall henceforth be used.
- tchalla 5y ago
  It’s a constant daily struggle to explain technology experts that inferior technology with superior business/customer/product results can be prioritised over superior technology with inferior business/customer/product results.
- avereveard 5y ago
  The whole JavaScript ecosystem
  - ratww 5y ago
    I'm all for shitting on the JS ecosystem, but honestly there haven't been any noticeable shifts whatsoever in its ecosystem for at least 6 or 7 years now. Both React and Vue.js are now older than jQuery was when both were released. Same for Babel and Webpack. Typescript is older than all of these. SASS/SCSS also older than Typescript. Those are the only things you see in 99% of the frontend job descriptions out there. If anything, frontend is kinda boring, and it can be argued that some of those tools above need some disruption.
    - avereveard 5y ago
      They keep releasing versions that break backward compatibility forcing whole app rewrite left and right, that counts too
      - treeman79 5y ago
        Had a year long project in Angular. Most of the time was spent rewriting the app and learning the right way “again”
      - ratww 5y ago
        The track record for compatibility in the tools I mentioned is extremely good. Even when new approaches were launched (Hooks, Composition in Vue), backwards compatibility was kept. You can even mix and match approaches in the same app. Of course there's Angular, but that's the exception to the rule. Heck, Microsoft has completely changed the way of writing native Windows apps in the last 10 years more ways than Javascript frameworks have introduced new stuff. Apple even changed the language to one that (unlike Typescript) is not backwards compatible. Complaining about the JS ecosystem evolving too fast is anachronistic, that happened more than 8 years ago.
        5y ago

yobbo 5y ago

> As much as devs try to disagree, technology is not a goal in of itself Can you find one dev that has ever disagreed with this?

brtkdotse 5y ago
I can find a ton of devs paying lip service disagreeing, but the second they utter “we need to rewrite this in…” the facade falls apart.
- choeger 5y ago
  Management in turn doesn't pay any attention whatsoever to the technology. They have no idea how quality and productivity is influenced by outdated or poor choices or simply a lack of investment into maintenance. You need people that care about the how you do it as much about the why and the what. Everything else is going to be disfunctional rather soon.
  - sorokod 5y ago
    I would argue that technology is in general not management's responsibility, but resource allocation is. If you care about quality and productivity, please quantify those and present your findings in terms of tradeoffs.
  - Ma8ee 5y ago
    It’s part of your job to explain that to them. And you have to do it in business terms, that is, how it will impact budget and schedule for the project. And prepare for questions like “ok, you have convinced me that Kotlin is superior to Java, but you are the only one in the team with any Kotlin experience, and we have a rather hard deadline for this project in 9 months. Are you hundred percent sure that we will both manage to train the team and deliver in that timeframe? And you know Karl, who’s retiring in a few years, he doesn’t seem to be very eager to learn something new. And he’s a damn productive Java programmer.”
- rgblambda 5y ago
  When I hear “we need to rewrite this in…”, it's usually because someone isn't familiar with the language it's currently in and wants to switch to the old language/framework they like best. I don't think I've ever actually heard someone trying to advocate for shiny new x just because.
sorokod 5y ago
"CV driven development" is a thing. "I am bored with the old framework, let's use the new shiny one" is a thing.
Ma8ee 5y ago
I’ve seen countless systems built where technology choices where more exciting than economical. Why build something in c# on top of SQL-server in six months when it can be done in three years with micro services, Kotlin, Cassandra, Kafka, mongoDb etc…
- brtkdotse 5y ago
  For real. That why I’ve focused my consulting on pure Microsoft stack at insurance companies. My knowledge _acumulates_ for each assignment, rather than having to start over with the tech du jour.
  - pjmlp 5y ago
    Java, .NET and C++ over here. Get to rewrite the micro services, Kotlin, Cassandra, Kafka, mongoDb hardly documented, back into C# on top of SQL Server when the teams have left for the new jobs after haved pimped up their CV.
- Aeolun 5y ago
  To be fair, this can also be because one random developer suggests this, management hears a fancy new term for their buzzword bingo, and they decree that that tech shall henceforth be used.
tchalla 5y ago
It’s a constant daily struggle to explain technology experts that inferior technology with superior business/customer/product results can be prioritised over superior technology with inferior business/customer/product results.
avereveard 5y ago
The whole JavaScript ecosystem
- ratww 5y ago
  I'm all for shitting on the JS ecosystem, but honestly there haven't been any noticeable shifts whatsoever in its ecosystem for at least 6 or 7 years now. Both React and Vue.js are now older than jQuery was when both were released. Same for Babel and Webpack. Typescript is older than all of these. SASS/SCSS also older than Typescript. Those are the only things you see in 99% of the frontend job descriptions out there. If anything, frontend is kinda boring, and it can be argued that some of those tools above need some disruption.
  - avereveard 5y ago
    They keep releasing versions that break backward compatibility forcing whole app rewrite left and right, that counts too
    - treeman79 5y ago
      Had a year long project in Angular. Most of the time was spent rewriting the app and learning the right way “again”
    - ratww 5y ago
      The track record for compatibility in the tools I mentioned is extremely good. Even when new approaches were launched (Hooks, Composition in Vue), backwards compatibility was kept. You can even mix and match approaches in the same app. Of course there's Angular, but that's the exception to the rule. Heck, Microsoft has completely changed the way of writing native Windows apps in the last 10 years more ways than Javascript frameworks have introduced new stuff. Apple even changed the language to one that (unlike Typescript) is not backwards compatible. Complaining about the JS ecosystem evolving too fast is anachronistic, that happened more than 8 years ago.
      - 5y ago