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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

#102

The tragedy is - why do the young care about technology? Look like they have to find some meaning in their un-fulfilling lives.

Technology is a false god. Speaking of which, I spent about 15 years of my life being an atheist. I went to Mexico last Christmas and came back a changed man. I answered the calling of my conscience. I think over time the current political situation in the US is going to push people back to traditional values as well. Living life for yourself is always going to be ultimately unfulfilling. Men need to sacrifice and be…

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...

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

#103
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…

I don't care about new tech per se, I care about solving problems for me and my customers. When new versions of libraries/frameworks/whatever do that. That's exciting.

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

#104
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?

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, Computer Science is lindy, algorithms and data structures are lindy. Knowledge of the real world, whether it be finance or shipping, is lindy. Sorry, verbose reply, but I hope it helps.

1. https://luca-dellanna.com/lindy/

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_effect

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

#105
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…

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 WebGPU.

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

#106
This sounds more like a complaint about day-to-day work as a developer and less about technology in general. I can certainly relate, though.

I personally believe that one of the biggest lies about professional life is that of "working with your passion," because it creates unrealistic expectations. Plenty of people can be passionate about programming, but precious few will have the luxury of being passionate - over time - about working as software developers.

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

#107
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?

Plenty of IT jobs out there that have job security to last your entire career and don't shift to the new shiny every few years. Utilities are a good example. Lots of older tech and some newer stuff, but nothing experimental.

Ex: Maintain some SQL queries, upgrade to a new database version without bricking everything, write some scripts that get fired off at a scheduled time, knowledge of the industry you're serving, update some configuration files for the company website which won't change for another decade, read some log files, create some visualization displays for operations staff, install software on certain machines, manage the company's VPN stuff, configure Linux, do the paperwork...etc

All this stuff is more generic IT and less rockstar developer. It reliably pays the bills and isn't very flashy.

There are plenty of people in IT that write code every day, some that rarely write code, and some that basically never write code, but just manage the business side of it all (there is a lot of beauracracy in large organizations).

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

#108
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?

Stop looking for work in tech places. It may require you to take a pay cut and work in a place viewed as a cost center though.

I'm honestly thinking about just picking up c++ or something and turning my attention to embedded systems. I'm sure there's a wealth of old tech sitting around that needs to be maintained.

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

#109
post #85

> I want to build things for people. Not constantly update my tools because other developers are bored. i find myself getting frustrated really quickly. if i run a node command and it gives error, i have urge to throw laptop out of window or smash it. web dev use to be about immediacy in the late 90s to mid 00s. now it feels like untangling wires for hours every day. frustrating and tedious.

Unfortunatly it's not only web development, try setting up some microcontroller toolchains. It's all just really tedious, I'm not a professional so maybe the problem is me, but a lot of this tech stuff is just frustrating to work with. Slow unresponsive UI(vscode + platformio) slow startup times(stmCube or arduinoIDE) it's just frustrating sometimes. Whenever I can I try to work with just VIM and install/upload stuff…

I have an Ardiuno-based clock kit where I added a firmware customization to support a GPS chip to auto-set the time.

If this daylight-savings change goes through in the US I'm going to have to build a new version and I haven't touched it in like six years, I'm sure that's going to go swimmingly.

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