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The author makes it sound as if "interesting" tech only exists for the sake of being interesting, but interesting tech becomes interesting because it (purports

The author makes it sound as if "interesting" tech only exists for the sake of being interesting, but interesting tech becomes interesting because it (purports to be) a better way of solving problems than whatever the old way was. I'm old enough to have worked on Cobol at one point, and Cobol is "boring" but it's also bad, because it was designed around the constraints that existed at the time it was created (as was Java). If you're interested in something that doesn't seem like a step forward in usefulness, I wonder why you'd actually be interested in it to begin with.

jonahx 5y ago
> but interesting tech becomes interesting because it (purports to be) a better way of solving problems than whatever the old way was. You would think so, but this is wrong for the same reason that "the most popular product is probably the best product" is wrong. Quality doesn't determine who wins. It's a factor but not the factor. In the case of programming languages in particular, tribalism, new-and-shiny syndrome, and marketing are all probably more important.
- jgwil2 5y ago
  Well, "most popular" is an objective category, whereas "interesting" is not, so it's really up to the individual to determine what is and isn't interesting.
  - jonahx 5y ago
    > so it's really up to the individual to determine what is and isn't interesting. True. The claim I'm making is that what people think is "interesting" is usually (ofc not always) determined by the factors I mentioned, rather than being informed by deep experience with and knowledge of the relevant "prior art". That is, the new framework or database seems "interesting" to you (the general you) because there are so many articles on HN about it, everyone is talking about, Facebook is using it, etc. Not because you are familiar with similar databases in this space, have specific complaints about them based on experience, and know that this new database has specific features purporting to address them, etc.
bryanrasmussen 5y ago
> I'm old enough to have worked on Cobol at one point So, how much money would 'they' have to offer you to go back to working on Cobol. they meaning a hypothetical company that says they can't find any Cobol programmers.
- redis_mlc 5y ago
  COBOL is an ok language. The problem is that you'd be updating very old programs, handling money to the cent, and dealing with systems that likely have had multiple hardware and OS migrations over the decades.

jonahx 5y ago

> but interesting tech becomes interesting because it (purports to be) a better way of solving problems than whatever the old way was. You would think so, but this is wrong for the same reason that "the most popular product is probably the best product" is wrong. Quality doesn't determine who wins. It's a factor but not the factor. In the case of programming languages in particular, tribalism, new-and-shiny syndrome, and marketing are all probably more important.

jgwil2 5y ago
Well, "most popular" is an objective category, whereas "interesting" is not, so it's really up to the individual to determine what is and isn't interesting.
- jonahx 5y ago
  > so it's really up to the individual to determine what is and isn't interesting. True. The claim I'm making is that what people think is "interesting" is usually (ofc not always) determined by the factors I mentioned, rather than being informed by deep experience with and knowledge of the relevant "prior art". That is, the new framework or database seems "interesting" to you (the general you) because there are so many articles on HN about it, everyone is talking about, Facebook is using it, etc. Not because you are familiar with similar databases in this space, have specific complaints about them based on experience, and know that this new database has specific features purporting to address them, etc.

bryanrasmussen 5y ago

> I'm old enough to have worked on Cobol at one point So, how much money would 'they' have to offer you to go back to working on Cobol. they meaning a hypothetical company that says they can't find any Cobol programmers.

redis_mlc 5y ago
COBOL is an ok language. The problem is that you'd be updating very old programs, handling money to the cent, and dealing with systems that likely have had multiple hardware and OS migrations over the decades.