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Boring Technology Checklist

blog.begin.com

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71–80 of 119 posts

Re: Boring Technology Checklist

#71

Post by ghughes »

62951413 wrote: post #68

A boring technology is one with which a large number of developers have previous production experience with. Or probably even "of the developers you can realistically expect to hire".

Better yet, hire developers who enjoy and excel at selecting and utilizing emerging technologies that will be a better long-term fit for the problem at hand. This is of course more difficult, but makes for a better team and product. I want my competitors to be afraid of technology and to de-prioritize hiring generalists.

Re: Boring Technology Checklist

#72

Post by k__ »

bob1029 wrote: post #69
k__ wrote: post #66

I wonder, how many engineers will switch their jobs because they have to work with boring tech? Sure, the stack you're using isn't everything and other parts of a project can be just as exciting. But I often heard engineers complain about their company being stuck in the past and they wish to use all the cool tech they see in the news.

> But I often heard engineers complain about their company being stuck in the past and they wish to use all the cool tech they see in the news. This is becoming my go-to filter for determining if I would want to hire someone in the first place. Hypothetically, if someone told me they left their prior job because they wanted to "use cool tech" on an interview, I would be providing a strong "No" input to the process. T…

Sure, that's the best case scenario.

In my experience companies, especially the small ones, struggle to hire engineers. So, they try to spice their positions up with some hot new tech.

Re: Boring Technology Checklist

#73

Post by julosflb »

allochthon wrote: post #22

The discussion around "boring" technology is an important one. Where to draw the line will be pretty context-dependent. An aerospace firm will put the line here, and a tech startup focusing on a low-risk use case will draw the line somewhere else. And the developers and other stakeholders will be relevant as well. In this context, the checklist at the bottom is interesting food for thought. But I would be wary of rel…

In aerospace engineering you would usually select technologies based on a concept of technology readiness level, which provides a framework for evaluating new technology and make sure you are in control of their maturity.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology_readiness_level

Re: Boring Technology Checklist

#75

Post by egypturnash »

mrkentutbabi wrote: post #2

What about between 2 boring technologies? For example I’m debating between Eleventy and Hugo (because I know both JS and Go, but not Ruby so I will skip Jekyll)

The truly boring choice for your blog is PHP and/or Perl. Wordpress, Movable Type, or possibly Textpattern if you are feeling a little edgy.

Re: Boring Technology Checklist

#77

Post by throwaway1777 »

Scarbutt wrote: post #50
lacker wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like Clojure, but it's really the exact opposite of the sort of "boring technology" that this post advocates. If MongoDB costs you 2 innovation tokens, Clojure costs at least 2, perhaps all 3. The cost of innovation is not so much in the core of Clojure itself, but that once your company gets larger, you will want to integrate with more and more things that have not put effort into Clojure compatibility, just becau…

you will want to integrate with more and more things that have not put effort into Clojure compatibility The answer to that is to just use java interop.

Or even to have some clojure services and some Java ones. And then work toward more clojure over time if there’s good reason to do it.

Re: Boring Technology Checklist

#78

Post by dwohnitmok »

I think commentators are missing that a big part of boring technology is, well, that it's boring. If developers are excited to use that technology, instead of just thinking "meh just another one of those companies using X" then it's probably not boring.

If your technology gets developers excited then it's not boring.

As per the original article that introduced the term, that doesn't mean that it's a priori a bad thing, but it does mean that the bar for the other things it brings to the table needs to be higher and that most startups only get a limited number of technologies to be excited about.

Re: Boring Technology Checklist

#79

Post by whakim »

radiator wrote: post #21
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about hiring though? If you have a vacancy for a Clojure developer, how many applicants could you expect? When it comes to programming languages, I'd stick to the top 10 languages if your company isn't hip enough to attract a certain kind of developer on its own.

It almost sounds like you don't believe that developers can learn new languages.

Of course people can learn new languages, but:

- A nonzero number of excellent potential applicants aren't going to work for your company because they don't want to invest their own development into learning the Clojure ecosystem deeply. (This might be somewhat balanced out by folks who are stoked to learn Clojure.)

- Every non-Clojure person you hire will require significantly more ramp-up time. This can be a real problem for small companies where you lose quite a lot of expertise every time a senior developer leaves.

- These problems compound for every "innovative" technology you add.

Re: Boring Technology Checklist

#80

Post by brianleroux »

mwcampbell wrote: post #4

I was surprised to find this published on begin.com, which offers an app deployment platform based on AWS Lambda. So are Lambda, API Gateway, and friends considered boring now?

hello author here! personally find AWS extremely boring, very mature and stable. well known limits, and tradeoffs.
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