One step ahead of you! I'm a C# developer.
Choose Boring Technology
201–210 of 356 posts
Re: Choose Boring Technology
#202Always glad to see this making the rounds, as it has been influential for me, especially the perspective of "Happiness comes from shipping stuff". I often think about this part, in particular: >Then we walked away. We didn’t do anything related to activity feeds for years after that. We barely even thought about it. >Then one day I said, “hey, I wonder how activity feeds is doing.” And I looked at it and was surprise…
The code that I've shipped that, 10 years later still runs at previous organizations with no support needed is really something I'm very proud of when I look back. At once point we actually wrote an AJAX site that worked in IE6, Firefox and Safari (pre-Chrome), before Prototype, jQuery or JSON was even a thing...and it still worked perfectly 10 years later. All hand coded JS and backend PHP + Java. It's one of the re…
> it still worked perfectly 10 years later. All hand coded JS and backend PHP + Java.
Is the server running ten-year-old PHP & Java or did you manage to write code not affected by any language changes? I would expect some changes to be necessary for PHP 5.2 era code to keep working even on PHP 5.6.
Re: Choose Boring Technology
#203Earlier quoted context omitted.
For me, implementing something that provides value with near-zero maintenance for years is the ultimate sign that I've done well. Such a good point it's worth repeating. We have a bunch of small tools of which the code might not exactly be brilliant or adhering all possible good practices, but after 10+ years they still just work without any unsurprising behavior nor bugs and still also just build/deploy with a click…
I've found that systems usually get robust over time - most issues in commonly run code paths get ironed out in production, and if we don't keep modifying the code, and the system's relative external world remains stable, things chug along. It is the greatest feeling though! We have a DOS application (inventory, accounts etc.) that has been in operation at a couple of retail stores for about 15 years now. No major ch…
You were still deploying a DOS application in 2004 ? Do you mind telling us more about the reasons why ?
Re: Choose Boring Technology
#204Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem is that those people who chose shiny new technology only see the benefit, while all the others in the company will rot in hell because of the stupid choice of a junior engineer (who jumped ships 3 times meanwhile). I don't see how does that benefit the company? The whole point of the article is that you should make wise technology decisions which benefits the whole organization.
> The problem is that those people who chose shiny new technology only see the benefit, while all the others in the company will rot in hell because of the stupid choice of a junior engineer (who jumped ships 3 times meanwhile). I don't see how does that benefit the company? The whole point of the article is that you should make wise technology decisions which benefits the whole organization. Sure, if your interests…
True, this puts the onus on the CTO not the junior developer who will make lots of dumb choices, not just shiny-chasing.
But there's no reason you can't work a day-job doing boring technology and do fun stuff on your side projects.
Companies should actively support your side-projects, especially if they involve R&D experimentation that could be useful in the long run to the company. Whether that's paying for you to attend educational events or any books/online video courses/supporting SaaS services/etc or giving you 10-20% of your week to do what you want.
Re: Choose Boring Technology
#205There’s a certain amount of ladder kicking involved in telling people to choose boring and beige technologies after you started up your career chasing after new and exciting shiny things. Every developer should spend some time working at the bleeding edge, so they know how it feels to get cut. The best time is absolutely at the beginning, when you’re a fresh grad and have the energy. You have the rest of your life to…
The problem is that those people who chose shiny new technology only see the benefit, while all the others in the company will rot in hell because of the stupid choice of a junior engineer (who jumped ships 3 times meanwhile). I don't see how does that benefit the company? The whole point of the article is that you should make wise technology decisions which benefits the whole organization.
Yes, this. At my last job, I was a mid-level developer. I set up a dev ops pipeline. I moved a bunch of stuff to microservices. I did a whole bunch of other shiny things. It looks great on my resume.
Microservices were a mistake. I should have fixed the underlying problem with the DB (we were misusing the ORM) first. It's fixed now, but we still have to deal with debugging microservices which sometimes mysteriously fail.
There's a whole bunch of other cruft I sprinkled throughout the codebase. Good news is I left with good experience, because I made a few mistakes. Bad news is they still have that architecture.
That's why you always need a senior developer on deck to tell young whippersnappers like me "no" every so often.
Increasingly, I'm understanding the benefit of working on projects outside of work -- so you can make mistakes like that on your own time. I wish more people followed the Google model and gave you every Friday to mess around with your own projects.
Re: Choose Boring Technology
#206Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The problem is that those people who chose shiny new technology only see the benefit, while all the others in the company will rot in hell because of the stupid choice of a junior engineer (who jumped ships 3 times meanwhile). I don't see how does that benefit the company? The whole point of the article is that you should make wise technology decisions which benefits the whole organization. Sure, if your interests…
True, this puts the onus on the CTO not the junior developer who will make lots of dumb choices, not just shiny-chasing. But there's no reason you can't work a day-job doing boring technology and do fun stuff on your side projects. Companies should actively support your side-projects, especially if they involve R&D experimentation that could be useful in the long run to the company. Whether that's paying for you to a…
There are too many CTOs and senior developers out there who are too busy working on their pet projects to care.
The foremost role of senior devs (at least in a company with juniors and mid-levels) should be technical oversight. Set up the architecture, set standards, and do the code reviews.
Not sit in the corner and learn React.js.
Re: Choose Boring Technology
#207There’s a certain amount of ladder kicking involved in telling people to choose boring and beige technologies after you started up your career chasing after new and exciting shiny things. Every developer should spend some time working at the bleeding edge, so they know how it feels to get cut. The best time is absolutely at the beginning, when you’re a fresh grad and have the energy. You have the rest of your life to…
Surely what you state here can be said of any advice given due to experience. As long as the natural inclinations of younger developers push up against said advice, it's completely sane to give it. Because without it, young developers will have an incomplete mental model, and will lack the intellectual tools to potentially make better choices early in their career. Also it seems to miss the point somewhat: choosing '…
The problem is actually finding jobs where the problem itself (rather than the tech stack) is compelling. Personally, I haven't seen much of that outside of academia or the elite of the elite Google X type roles.
Re: Choose Boring Technology
#208Another case of someone discovering, after 10+ years in tech, that code is a liability and you're supposed to solve problems instead of chasing trends and padding the resume. Great that he's spreading the word!
chasing trends is a problem but suffering java You can deliver so much more, so much safer using other techniques...
I think it makes sense to keep up with the latest version of the programming language you use, and keep updating the codebase.
The important part is not introducing an entirely new language that no one knows, or changing around the entire architecture without really being able to understand the long term consequences.
Also, after moving to C#, I don't know why anyone uses plain old Java anymore. C# runs on Linux now. It's not the 90s anymore. Oracle is the dinosaur and MS now is kind to its developers. Plus I'm hoping that client-side C# will take off with WebAssembly.
Re: Choose Boring Technology
#209Probably too late to contribute to the discussion, but I chose Windows Batch for the Tron project (https://old.reddit.com/r/TronScript) because it's super reliable and works on every version of Windows.
Re: Choose Boring Technology
#210During the 20th century, the Mig-21 was tried and true. It was rugged and dependable. One US test pilot described it as, "Fuel it up and go!" It would fit all the qualities of "boring" tech in this article. However, as a spectator, there's really nothing boring about it.