Michael BaconAlso, techbros: "AI is going to change everything, nothing will be the same, adopt it or get left behind"
Senior devs: "Well golly gee, now that's something I've never heard before . . ."
derptron@MichaelTBacon @raganwald @gvwilson "Been left behind my whole life. Why should I start worrying about it now?"
@crazyeddie @raganwald @gvwilson
*10 new super-shiny things appear on the horizon*
Young dev: "ooh, those are the future! Let's go—"
Old dev: <hand out blocking the way> "Hang, on, wait for it. . . "
*7 of the 10 super-shiny things crash and burn in a fiery ball that can be seen from space*
Old dev: "almost . . ."
*1 of remaining shiny things turns evil and starts eating everything near it*
Old dev: "okay, let's go."
Kinene⭐🐻@MichaelTBacon @crazyeddie @raganwald @gvwilson ... and somewhere, imbedded in some large institutional mainframe, a COBOL program is still running.
Jeff Grigg@c_merriweather @MichaelTBacon @crazyeddie @raganwald @gvwilson
Everywhere.
The COBOL programs are *EVERYWHERE*.
And they're central, pivotal, and vital to the continued successful operation of most parts of the world economy.
@JeffGrigg @MichaelTBacon @crazyeddie @raganwald @gvwilson Yeah, I know. My mom probably contributed to some of that code (GE, in the 1960s).
@c_merriweather @MichaelTBacon @crazyeddie @raganwald @gvwilson
My father gave me his IBM COBOL manual. And I've programmed COBOL on Hollerith punch cards.
Deborah Preuss, pcc 🇨🇦@JeffGrigg @c_merriweather @MichaelTBacon @crazyeddie @raganwald @gvwilson me too! And I punched other people's cards for pocket money.
Steve Freeman@deborahh @JeffGrigg @c_merriweather @MichaelTBacon @crazyeddie @raganwald @gvwilson I had to punch my only cards before graduating to a teletype. Didn’t like those new-fangled CRT’s much.
Poslovitch@MichaelTBacon I'm confused now. Does that mean, with my less than a year of actual work experience in that field, I would still qualify as a "senior dev" just because I don't run towards anything shiny and new? 😂
Was that the true test?
Luddicus MusDeveloper seniority is not measured in years in the field. It is measured in burning bandwagons and hype cycles avoided.
@Poslovitch @MichaelTBacon @raganwald @gvwilson No.
You still have to prove you can do the Jira Shuffle down and dirty with a facade of grace and elegance.
@Poslovitch @MichaelTBacon @crazyeddie @raganwald @gvwilson yes, head directly to HR to claim your upgrade 👍 .
Congrats!
Congrats!
Derek Martin@MichaelTBacon @crazyeddie @raganwald @gvwilson @baldur Old dev here. I try not to adopt “new” tech until it’s been popular and in production for 5 years.
@lo_fye @crazyeddie @raganwald @gvwilson @baldur "Never touch a Microsoft product with a .0 version number" is a Thing for a reason.
@MichaelTBacon @lo_fye @raganwald @gvwilson @baldur I don't touch a Microsoft product unless someone pays me to.
@crazyeddie Teams is the devil incarnate.
@lo_fye @MichaelTBacon @raganwald @gvwilson @baldur Old dev here. Still young enough to get a shock at how much new shit has been around 5-10+ years.
Cassandrich@MichaelTBacon @crazyeddie @raganwald @gvwilson Slight error. It was 9 out of 10 and the 1 last remaining.
AL
Matt Boehm@MichaelTBacon
New (now old) shiny thing now delivers 1/8th of what it claimed to at its peak but what it does yields a pretty good ROI.
@crazyeddie @raganwald @gvwilson
New (now old) shiny thing now delivers 1/8th of what it claimed to at its peak but what it does yields a pretty good ROI.
@crazyeddie @raganwald @gvwilson
Michael Wyman@MichaelTBacon @raganwald @gvwilson the number of bandwagons I’ve politely declined to jump on, only to walk past their smoking husks a year or two later…
notsoloud@MichaelTBacon
Left Behind is the obvious techbro/evangelical meme crossover.
Where will you be after Singularity?
@raganwald @gvwilson
@MichaelTBacon @raganwald @gvwilson
I wrote programs on Hollerith cards.
My boss and I joked about how nonsensical it was that our work permits required proof of college education in the field, to show that we knew the technologies. None of the technologies we went there to teach even existed when we graduated from college.
I feel the pace of change these days is slow and boring.
…
@MichaelTBacon @raganwald @gvwilson
In a few recent online discussions, where we listed "innovations in the software development industry" in the last ten years, I found it just depressing as to how few there have been. Hard to even make a list.
Now that was before Generative AI took off. But I still consider that a hype bubble that cannot possibly succeed.
@JeffGrigg @raganwald @gvwilson
I really think a lot of the momentum behind the AI stuff is people being absolutely convinced that a New Life-Changing Tech Thing must come along every so often, and we haven't had one in a while.
I think the venture capitalization of tech has killed the golden goose.
But there's way too much money and status behind the "tech will lead us on" idea and GenAI is the only thing at hand, so this must be it!!!
@JeffGrigg @raganwald @gvwilson
The real life-changing tech ideas out there right now are all sustainability related. Like, what has happened to solar energy and battery storage is *insane*.
But the usual suspects don't own that, so it's not "tech."
Tanguy ⧓ Herrmann@JeffGrigg @MichaelTBacon @raganwald @gvwilson come on!
Now you can go from next.js to nuxt.js. Don't you see the change?
@dolanor @MichaelTBacon @raganwald @gvwilson
Yea; JavaScript frameworks, courtesy of the "flavor of the month club." 🙄
Mārtiņš Barinskis@MichaelTBacon @raganwald @gvwilson I would say that it's not like senior engineers don't try and actually use AI (I'm one of them). It's just I think that, going through these changes, we still keep some healthy and sustainable dose of skepticism.