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As I get older, I just don't care about new technology

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Re: As I get older, I just don't care about new technology

#161
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Genuine question, as someone who got exhausted and is out of the industry for the foreseeable future. How do you stay competitive or job hop when every post is looking for the latest web framework?

Don't choose hamster-wheel career tracks in the first place. Try to find Lindy paths [1], [2]. For example, SQL experts and DBAs. The rise and (mostly) demise of NoSQL actually cemented SQL's reputation as an irreplaceable technology. The latest Web framework is by definition non-Lindy: it's the new kid in town who think they know it all. grep is lindy, Unix is lindy, the qwerty keyboard is lindy, C++ is lindy, Compu…

The demise of NoSQL is greatly exaggerated. It's past it's hype cycle, and that's fine.

Many of us use it quietly, to do good work, and there is no need to crow to the world about what is happening under the hood.

Re: As I get older, I just don't care about new technology

#162
post #3

Title is misleading. Not getting excited about a new Next.js version doesn't mean you don't care about new technology. Maybe it just means that you don't feel like reorganizing your code or something. Relatively speaking it's still an incremental upgrade to your approach overall. I am 45 and stopped caring much about new web frameworks many years ago. It's not that I don't find them interesting or even advantageous i…

Does anyone really care about Next 12 -> Next 13?

On the other hand the rise of AI is an interesting thing. And Mars rockets and ebikes are cool.

Re: As I get older, I just don't care about new technology

#163
I don't know about the rest of the world, but I keep losing interest in technology because it's rarely meant to be useful anymore. More and more technology seeks these goals:

1. control

2. vanity

3. ego

4. control

5. megalomania

6. compulsive urge to radically change everything you ever thought you knew about ____________

7. control

I haven't been the target audience of technology for a long time.

Re: As I get older, I just don't care about new technology

#164
post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Religiosity is rapidly going down over time and it's unlikely that it's going to suddenly turn around. https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2022/09/13/how-u-s-reli...

We don't even have a name for it now, that's how bad it is IMO. All those mere vessels relaying what "the average user" or "the industry" requires, which we should most humbly submit to. The way "disrupt" was thrown around, or the kool-aid required to believe that continuing down the route consolidation and inequality will somehow result in universal basic income. People who fly to 15 conferences a year rolling their…

Did you mean to reply to someone else?

Re: As I get older, I just don't care about new technology

#165
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> now it feels like untangling wires for hours every day. At least we've moved past webpack, that was a bundle of wires that couldn't ever be completely untangled.

What came after Webpack?

Vite is pretty standard. Most importantly, it does a lot less by utilising new standards and a reasonable default config.

Re: As I get older, I just don't care about new technology

#166
post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't choose hamster-wheel career tracks in the first place. Try to find Lindy paths [1], [2]. For example, SQL experts and DBAs. The rise and (mostly) demise of NoSQL actually cemented SQL's reputation as an irreplaceable technology. The latest Web framework is by definition non-Lindy: it's the new kid in town who think they know it all. grep is lindy, Unix is lindy, the qwerty keyboard is lindy, C++ is lindy, Compu…

The demise of NoSQL is greatly exaggerated. It's past it's hype cycle, and that's fine. Many of us use it quietly, to do good work, and there is no need to crow to the world about what is happening under the hood.

My team was asked how we should store data that is variable in structure and depth. When I suggested using mongo and not trying stuff it into a SQL db, I was looked at like I had suggested blending my firstborn for margaritas. People seem to think that NoSQL is dead and was always a bad idea.

Re: As I get older, I just don't care about new technology

#167
post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm just exhausted by it. I've been writing front-end code since 2009 so I've been here from the early jQuery days, and I don't have the energy to keep rummaging through docs to figure out how this new special thing (next13/astro/alpine/blah/blah/blah) deviates from standard web technology. I'd much rather conserve my limited energy for things that are inherent to the platform and actually exciting, like WASM or WebG…

Maybe offtopic but jQuery still kinda rocks for small proejcts. It's not the fastest nor does it do fancy compile steps to avoid the DOM but instead just provides an easy-to-use API for most common tasks. And as a bonus the documentation is awesome compared to mpst other new-ish JS frameworks.

There’s really no reason to use jQuery at this point. It made sense when the native APIs were lacking and inconsistent between browsers. That’s not the case anymore. Just use vanilla JavaScript.

Re: As I get older, I just don't care about new technology

#168
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> now it feels like untangling wires for hours every day. At least we've moved past webpack, that was a bundle of wires that couldn't ever be completely untangled.

What came after Webpack?

I think rollup was the first sane webpack replacement:, significantly less versatile, while significantly more sane.

Re: As I get older, I just don't care about new technology

#169
post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me the ages are more like Although I also remember being 18 and meeting some 70+ year olds that were very adept at using computers/the web and that really impressed me.

I don't know, I'm forty and LLMs are exciting as hell. If we're talking web frameworks, Django was the last good thing and there can never be any more innovation in that sector. In seriousness, though, a technology that lets me do things I couldn't do before is great. A technology that slightly reorganizes my code and makes it so I have to throw everything I have so far away, I'm less excited about. What motivates me…

If you are 40 then you'd have been 33-34 when the "Attention Is All You Need" preprint that laid the foundation for LLMs became available.

Re: As I get older, I just don't care about new technology

#170
post #82
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hell, I stopped carrying about new web frameworks when I was 25.

Genuine question, as someone who got exhausted and is out of the industry for the foreseeable future. How do you stay competitive or job hop when every post is looking for the latest web framework?

Map territory distinction -- what they are looking for (strong engineers regardless of stack) and what the role is (a description of what you'll be doing) are two different things. Find your way to doing and articulating impactful projects that use technology to measurably create leverage and value for the business, and you will be fine. Of course, that can be easier said than done.
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