6 ms·

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.

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.