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Embracing “Old” Tech

blogs.newardassociates.com

41–47 of 47 posts

Re: Embracing “Old” Tech

#42
post #8
post #4

I live in a world on the trailing edge. Sometimes the best of the last generation is better than the new of the next. While I don't know how strongly this author makes that case, it's true in a general sense.

These days a generation (major version) can be under a year. How far back do you lag to feel safe?

These days, version numbering has become so muddled and distorted that you can't really judge these sorts of things by version number anymore.

Re: Embracing “Old” Tech

#43
post #17
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, nobody _says_ this. An enormous number of people make statements that imply they believe this. Honestly, that’s one of the common criticisms I see of HN: That it’s full of people who believe they’re doing something new when they’re just recreating something old, but because theirs is new it’s better, usually because of why it’s new. (Blank but in Rust, Blank but in Go, blank but in JavaScript…) In my own experien…

Upvote for mentioning Subversion. Back in 2016 I briefly worked at a old, large corporation that was still using CVS. During that time management decided that company policy was now to be hip with the younger generation. One very senior manager actually used the expression "we must strive to be the Uber of [our industry]" This also led to a mandate that we should switch to Git because it was new and shiny. You can ju…

> One very senior manager actually used the expression "we must strive to be the Uber of [our industry]"

Oh, boy. That's a very bright signal to run, don't walk, away from that company.

Re: Embracing “Old” Tech

#44
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Upvote for mentioning Subversion. Back in 2016 I briefly worked at a old, large corporation that was still using CVS. During that time management decided that company policy was now to be hip with the younger generation. One very senior manager actually used the expression "we must strive to be the Uber of [our industry]" This also led to a mandate that we should switch to Git because it was new and shiny. You can ju…

I feel like I'm the only person who thinks Git is terrible. I hate using it.

You're not the only person. I know a handful of devs who heartily agree with you, and most devs I know don't really love or hate it. It's just the tool they have to use.

I don't hate git, but I do like subversion more. That said, I completely understand why someone would hate git.

Re: Embracing “Old” Tech

#45
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These days a generation (major version) can be under a year. How far back do you lag to feel safe?

Personally, I've set 10 years for myself as a reasonable timespan, and I round up or down the version number to where it makes sense in terms of larger changes that have happened throughout the version history of the respective piece of software. There's a thought that Nassim Nicholas Taleb mentions in one of his books that I've frequently used as a mental model ever since coming across it: For a book that has contin…

There's a certain comfort in using a language that's "done" and is not going to change from beneath your feet. It's also one of the reasons why I strangely like python2. Compared to python3 which has a new release every year (and requires you to update all libraries that now are only compatible with the new version, causing a lot of churn for no reason), python2 still continues chugging along, and you know that people still targeting it value stability over breaking change.

Re: Embracing “Old” Tech

#46
post #31

I have adopted the Nintendo policy - of betting on "withered" technology. not only is it cheaper to use a version that's a few years old, you know the pitfalls, documentation is easily found etc.

don't you mean weathered?

Re: Embracing “Old” Tech

#47
post #46
post #31

I have adopted the Nintendo policy - of betting on "withered" technology. not only is it cheaper to use a version that's a few years old, you know the pitfalls, documentation is easily found etc.

don't you mean weathered?

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