Comment by mgraczyk
6 days ago
It reminds me of many of the people I worked with early in my career.
They were opposed to C++ (they thought C was all you need), opposed to git (they used IBM clearcase or subversion), opposed to putting internal tools in a web browser (why not use Qt and install the tool), opposed to using python or javascript for web services (it's just a script kiddie language), opposed to sublime text/pycharm/vscode (IDEs are for people who don't know how to use a CLI).
I have encountered it over and over, and each time these people get stuck in late career jobs making less than 1/3 of what most 23 year old SWEs I know are making.
At some point, folks just want stability. I don't think you're at that point in your career, but the technology treadmill eventually burns everyone. Ironically, you're most likely going to use GenAI to counteract what is the same scenario (learning GenAI means I never have to learn again).
Yeah of course, and that sounds like a great hobby you can have (like the woodworking example in the article).
But if you expect to get paid, you need to keep up and stay productive.
And it doesn't burn everyone out. All of the best 50+ year old engineers I know use LLMs constantly.
They were probably also opposed to some other things that failed.
But then hindsight is 20/20.
Yes, but honestly, I was this way at the beginning of my career, and I can't think of any examples of things I was right about.
My most successful "this is doomed to fail" grouchiness was social media games (like Farmville).
But I just can't think of any examples in the dev tooling space.
Being opposed to things that fail is not important.
You can rightly avoid new things 99% of the time, but if you miss the 1% of things that matter, you get left behind.
On the other hand if you adopt the latest thing 100% of the time and 99% of those things are a waste, you will probably be fine.