10 ms·

Or it could be that you just became old and don't want to learn new things anymore ))

by usaphp 5y ago

jenkstom 5y ago
This is the antivax sentiment of the IT world. It's new! It's shiny! Give me some Ivermectin because I know things other people don't! (Yes, I realize you're probably joking. I'm not, particularly.)
- ThePowerOfFuet 5y ago
  What does ivermectin have to do with anything? Are you suffering from chronic parasitic infection?
- rattlesnakedave 5y ago
  You have it reversed. “I don’t want the new vaccine! Who knows what the long term side effects are!” is equivalent to the technical curmudgeon. The voluntary early trial test group are the bleeding edge tech people. The Ivermectin crowd is the guy that suggests rewriting the backend in Haskell for no good reason.
- nurettin 5y ago
  It's like you're just repeating the last inane discussion YouTube got you hooked on in order to get some ad clicks.
goodpoint 5y ago
Such "new things" are just a big bunch of unnecessary complexity.
- repomies69 5y ago
  Sometimes yes. But it is impossible to know for sure. New things still get adopted, some of those new things actually stick and provide value
  - spicybright 5y ago
    And at the very least, being old lets you be able to evaluate these new things more accurately.
    - rattlesnakedave 5y ago
      How?
    - goodpoint 5y ago
      It obviously does, but experience is not the only way: you can always read what people wrote and did in the past. It only takes some humility.
      - selcuka 5y ago
        You can, and it will certainly help, but as the old saying goes "unfortunately no one can be told what the Matrix is, you have to see it for yourself". In some contexts no amount of reading will give you the insight that experience does.
        spicybright 5y ago
        And vice versa, too (granted my own learning style leads me to implementing what I read in little test projects, but I digress) Overall though, I'm finding the more unique sensory info you give your brain, the better it gets at solving problems in general. Even if that info isn't very related to your goal. It's a bit like trying not to be a hammer that sees everything as a nail.
- rattlesnakedave 5y ago
  Or is cope for a loss of neuroplasticity? Has to be evaluated case by case. “Experience” doesn’t count for much when evaluating new technical tooling. Landscape shifts far too much.
  - tomc1985 5y ago
    The landscape doesn't need to shift nearly as often as it does. But we are an industry obsessed with hiring magpie developers as cheaply as we can, and those magpie developers demand cool merit badges to put on their resumes, and here we are. "Everything old is new again" does not BEGIN to do tech justice. Compared to nearly every other profession on the planet, tech knowledge churn is like 10x as fast.
    - goodpoint 5y ago
      > tech knowledge churn is like 10x as fast. Spot on! Moreover, every time the wheel is unnecessarily reinvented previous lessons are lost. What is even worse is that people really want to reinvent the wheel and get defensive if you point that out. Comments like "Or is cope for a loss of neuroplasticity" are a good example.
      - tomc1985 5y ago
        It's outright naked ageism. I have been studying a different trade, completely unrelated to software engineering or tech, and by far the weirdest thing is reading books or watching seminars from 20 or 30 years ago that are still relevant. How much of technology writing has that honor? Very little. Like I have been obsessed with tech and computers my whole life, I studied computer stuff when all the other kids were outside playing football or chasing girls or whatever, I self-taught to a very high level of expertise and that knowledge has just been getting systematically ripped away. Which is fine, to an extent, gotta embrace change and yada yada yada. But I no longer have the patience to grind to expertise-level on something over a period of years only to find out the industry has moved on to something completely different to do the exact same thing! All because some starry-eyed shit somewhere in FAANG doesn't like something!
- ParetoOptimal 5y ago
  > Such "new things" are just a big bunch of unnecessary complexity. By definition the "old things" you use would also be "just a big bunch of unnecessary complexity" since they were once new.
basisword 5y ago
Or their experience helps them have the wisdom to determine which new things are worth learning and which are a waste of time.
CuriouslyC 5y ago
Some old things really are better, or at least not worse and already familiar.
rattlesnakedave 5y ago
This certainly seems more common. Every time I’ve had to refactor 20 year old cruft it’s been because of engineers with the launch-and-iterate mentality 20 years ago, that stopped caring about the “iterate” part once they gained enough job security.
- hkt 5y ago
  Blaming the engineers rather than the businesses seems.. odd. It isn't like the people writing that code had control over what the company set as priorities. If anything, what you experienced seems to be a reflection of corporate short termism.
  - dylan604 5y ago
    Quite right. The devs probably had a bunch of "TODO: This can be refactored" through out the code or at least mentally stored, yet the pointy haired bosses decided it was good enough and re-assigned the devs to other tasks.
  - ironmagma 5y ago
    That dichotomy falls apart because engineers are part of the business. If the business wants to do something but the engineers won’t do it, it won’t happen.
tomc1985 5y ago
Such ageism.

Or it could be that you just became old and don't want to learn new things anymore ))

by usaphp 5y ago

Or it could be that you just became old and don't want to learn new things anymore ))

This is the antivax sentiment of the IT world. It's new! It's shiny! Give me some Ivermectin because I know things other people don't! (Yes, I realize you're probably joking. I'm not, particularly.)

ThePowerOfFuet 5y ago
What does ivermectin have to do with anything? Are you suffering from chronic parasitic infection?
rattlesnakedave 5y ago
You have it reversed. “I don’t want the new vaccine! Who knows what the long term side effects are!” is equivalent to the technical curmudgeon. The voluntary early trial test group are the bleeding edge tech people. The Ivermectin crowd is the guy that suggests rewriting the backend in Haskell for no good reason.
nurettin 5y ago
It's like you're just repeating the last inane discussion YouTube got you hooked on in order to get some ad clicks.

goodpoint 5y ago

Such "new things" are just a big bunch of unnecessary complexity.

repomies69 5y ago
Sometimes yes. But it is impossible to know for sure. New things still get adopted, some of those new things actually stick and provide value
- spicybright 5y ago
  And at the very least, being old lets you be able to evaluate these new things more accurately.
  - rattlesnakedave 5y ago
    How?
  - goodpoint 5y ago
    It obviously does, but experience is not the only way: you can always read what people wrote and did in the past. It only takes some humility.
    - selcuka 5y ago
      You can, and it will certainly help, but as the old saying goes "unfortunately no one can be told what the Matrix is, you have to see it for yourself". In some contexts no amount of reading will give you the insight that experience does.
      - spicybright 5y ago
        And vice versa, too (granted my own learning style leads me to implementing what I read in little test projects, but I digress) Overall though, I'm finding the more unique sensory info you give your brain, the better it gets at solving problems in general. Even if that info isn't very related to your goal. It's a bit like trying not to be a hammer that sees everything as a nail.
rattlesnakedave 5y ago
Or is cope for a loss of neuroplasticity? Has to be evaluated case by case. “Experience” doesn’t count for much when evaluating new technical tooling. Landscape shifts far too much.
- tomc1985 5y ago
  The landscape doesn't need to shift nearly as often as it does. But we are an industry obsessed with hiring magpie developers as cheaply as we can, and those magpie developers demand cool merit badges to put on their resumes, and here we are. "Everything old is new again" does not BEGIN to do tech justice. Compared to nearly every other profession on the planet, tech knowledge churn is like 10x as fast.
  - goodpoint 5y ago
    > tech knowledge churn is like 10x as fast. Spot on! Moreover, every time the wheel is unnecessarily reinvented previous lessons are lost. What is even worse is that people really want to reinvent the wheel and get defensive if you point that out. Comments like "Or is cope for a loss of neuroplasticity" are a good example.
    - tomc1985 5y ago
      It's outright naked ageism. I have been studying a different trade, completely unrelated to software engineering or tech, and by far the weirdest thing is reading books or watching seminars from 20 or 30 years ago that are still relevant. How much of technology writing has that honor? Very little. Like I have been obsessed with tech and computers my whole life, I studied computer stuff when all the other kids were outside playing football or chasing girls or whatever, I self-taught to a very high level of expertise and that knowledge has just been getting systematically ripped away. Which is fine, to an extent, gotta embrace change and yada yada yada. But I no longer have the patience to grind to expertise-level on something over a period of years only to find out the industry has moved on to something completely different to do the exact same thing! All because some starry-eyed shit somewhere in FAANG doesn't like something!
ParetoOptimal 5y ago
> Such "new things" are just a big bunch of unnecessary complexity. By definition the "old things" you use would also be "just a big bunch of unnecessary complexity" since they were once new.

basisword 5y ago

Or their experience helps them have the wisdom to determine which new things are worth learning and which are a waste of time.

CuriouslyC 5y ago

Some old things really are better, or at least not worse and already familiar.

rattlesnakedave 5y ago

This certainly seems more common. Every time I’ve had to refactor 20 year old cruft it’s been because of engineers with the launch-and-iterate mentality 20 years ago, that stopped caring about the “iterate” part once they gained enough job security.

hkt 5y ago
Blaming the engineers rather than the businesses seems.. odd. It isn't like the people writing that code had control over what the company set as priorities. If anything, what you experienced seems to be a reflection of corporate short termism.
- dylan604 5y ago
  Quite right. The devs probably had a bunch of "TODO: This can be refactored" through out the code or at least mentally stored, yet the pointy haired bosses decided it was good enough and re-assigned the devs to other tasks.
- ironmagma 5y ago
  That dichotomy falls apart because engineers are part of the business. If the business wants to do something but the engineers won’t do it, it won’t happen.

tomc1985 5y ago

Such ageism.