Comment by papito

I once got excited about ExtJS, the way it created a desktop-like experience in the browser, and I said to myself, "I will learn this, all of it, I will become an expert. Tips and tricks, best practices, the works".

After six months of this, ExtJS 4 came out, which was essentially a totally new framework. Everything I learned was not only not applicable, it had to be actively unlearned.

The lesson here is: become good and proficient at something, but don't focus on becoming a ninja in one particular transient tech. There is value in becoming a Jedi of Unix build-in tools, or more persistent technologies like Git, for example.

Also, this is a bigger problem in the Javascript echosystem, where the hype cycles are more intense than in, say, Python. I checked out my Flask project from seven years ago and it's ready to rock.

I get the thing about constant learning, but learning in this industry used to be cumulative. Now it's a hamster wheel. You are learning how to solve the same problems, in a different, presumably in a "new" way.

People seem to be spending more time coming up with catchy names for their projects than making sure this is all sustainable.