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Tech innovation is accelerating. The old guys vastly underestimate the productivity difference between old tech and hip new tech. The young guys vastly overes

Tech innovation is accelerating. The old guys vastly underestimate the productivity difference between old tech and hip new tech. The young guys vastly overestimate how much of their productivity is due to their own smarts rather than using hip tech, and don't sufficiently appreciate that when they get older, the experience they've accumulated won't be worth much, either. Re-learning everything every 5 years is only fun the first and second times. But certainly, years of experience with some tech is becoming less and less valuable, as the tech is changing faster and faster.

stray 12y ago
New tech for the most part, is just a repackaging of old ideas.
rabino 12y ago
Most of the time what changes is cosmetics, not paradigms. And also being productive is just not about code, it's about time management, human interaction, strategic thinking... All stuff that gets better with experience.
tensor 12y ago
Your comment represents a particularly distasteful type of arrogance. Despite being too young to have actually studied serious topics to any great depth, you feel that you know more than everyone else. This toxic attitude is holding back our industry more than anything else.
zik 12y ago
The old guys are watching the "hip new tech" with amusement because they've seen it all before and know why it didn't work last time around.
lolatu54 12y ago
geezer here - You don't really have to relearn everything every 5 years, but yeah, part of what I love about tech is that I'm always learning and ready to adopt cool new technology when it is truly a better solution to a problem. Experience allows me to see through the hype and know when something new is actually better, something that younger guys lack. I feel really young at heart because I'm always learning. One thing 20-30 year olds should remember, time speeds up as you get older. You will be forty before you know it. Better start creating an industry that can support you when you are older or else you will be the next dinosaur who can't get a job.
z0r 12y ago
Indeed, one of my major complaints about the computer field is that whereas Newton could say, "If I have seen a little farther than others, it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants," I am forced to say, "Today we stand on each other's feet." Perhaps the central problem we face in all of computer science is how we are to get to the situation where we build on top of the work of others rather than redoing so much of it in a trivially different way. - Richard Hamming
Im_Talking 12y ago
You have no idea what you're talking about. I'm 54 and learning node.js recently was a snap. Why? Because I know 10 other languages and have written production code for 30 years. I have interviewed a lot of young programmers and they talk about all this new cool stuff yet their skills to write core SQL and true production-level code is lacking. If you want to generalise, I can too.

stray 12y ago

New tech for the most part, is just a repackaging of old ideas.

rabino 12y ago

Most of the time what changes is cosmetics, not paradigms. And also being productive is just not about code, it's about time management, human interaction, strategic thinking... All stuff that gets better with experience.

tensor 12y ago

Your comment represents a particularly distasteful type of arrogance. Despite being too young to have actually studied serious topics to any great depth, you feel that you know more than everyone else. This toxic attitude is holding back our industry more than anything else.

zik 12y ago

The old guys are watching the "hip new tech" with amusement because they've seen it all before and know why it didn't work last time around.

lolatu54 12y ago

geezer here - You don't really have to relearn everything every 5 years, but yeah, part of what I love about tech is that I'm always learning and ready to adopt cool new technology when it is truly a better solution to a problem. Experience allows me to see through the hype and know when something new is actually better, something that younger guys lack. I feel really young at heart because I'm always learning. One thing 20-30 year olds should remember, time speeds up as you get older. You will be forty before you know it. Better start creating an industry that can support you when you are older or else you will be the next dinosaur who can't get a job.

z0r 12y ago

Indeed, one of my major complaints about the computer field is that whereas Newton could say, "If I have seen a little farther than others, it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants," I am forced to say, "Today we stand on each other's feet." Perhaps the central problem we face in all of computer science is how we are to get to the situation where we build on top of the work of others rather than redoing so much of it in a trivially different way. - Richard Hamming

Im_Talking 12y ago

You have no idea what you're talking about. I'm 54 and learning node.js recently was a snap. Why? Because I know 10 other languages and have written production code for 30 years. I have interviewed a lot of young programmers and they talk about all this new cool stuff yet their skills to write core SQL and true production-level code is lacking. If you want to generalise, I can too.