Jamie White
Jason GormanAfter 34 years in software development, I'm beginning to wonder if being "left behind" might in fact be the secret to a long career.
Russell Garner@jasongorman I've managed to almost completely avoid React.js in this way and have come out the other side where "SSR" is the new hotness despite having done nothing but SSR since 1996
Steve Purcell@rgarner @jasongorman Same, I have tactically avoided putting significant life force into a number of trends that felt "off" to me, React, k8s, extreme microservices and proprietary cloud services among them. I know enough about these things to happily leave the deep expertise to others, preferably far away, and in competitors' businesses rather than my own.
@sanityinc @jasongorman hey I think we've avoided the same technologies.
I'm going to add Tailwind to this list.
@sanityinc @jasongorman things I've bet the farm on that haven't gone away: HTTP, HTML, CSS, SQL. All stuff with some kind of not-directly-corporate standard behind it. The binding execution language is in some ways the least interesting part.
@rgarner @jasongorman fuck yeah to this whole list
@sanityinc I mean I'd add JS, because I do lots of it, but quite reluctantly.
@rgarner understood, some things can be left unspoken
@rgarner @jasongorman amazing what you can do if you just skate directly to the puck rather than renting a generalized puck-location-finding, ice-polishing, skate-grinding mobile operations centre from ex Googlers.
EdTheDev@sanityinc @rgarner @jasongorman I'm going to use this amazing sentence. Thank you. It cuts right to the heart of the conversation.
Ryan McCuaig@sanityinc @rgarner @jasongorman I set up a new thing recently as bare-VPS with bash script installers, deploy is a post-receive hook, and I’m now quite irritated whenever I work on something that isn’t this. (Also, having another bare repo around when github is down is pretty great).
@rgm the classics are classics for a reason!
Sin Vega@jasongorman I keep thinking of that bit in The Mist, where andre braugher and some randos insist that everything's fine and it's great out there and everyone should just wander out into the mist full of horrible death
Except at least he actually leaves instead of staying for the entire film and interrupting every conversation to berate people and mock them for "being left behind"
I really wish they'd just fucking go already. "Left behind"? Left behind where? You're still fucking here mate
James BrittWe need a coder rapture.
clewfeels like we're getting one
Wouter LindenhofSometimes it’s better to be left behind. If you’re standing at the edge of a cliff, you don’t want to be pushed forward. If you’re waiting for a train, stepping forward too soon will be a huge mistake.
There’s a big difference between falling and diving, and between jumping in front of a train and simply boarding it.
There is a good reason why software development is compared to craftsmanship.
Easter Benny 🐇🥚@jasongorman I've had a terrific career focusing on the boring things that other people don't want to think about.
nthcdr@jasongorman This is the kind of optimism I'm secretly craving as these days feel particulary gloomy.
Jeff GriggI know quite a few people who have built healthy businesses and careers doing maintenance on old outdated systems that were "left behind" by the rest of the industry.
f♯ a♯ ∞@jasongorman that's totally my plan for the rest of my career. 20 years in and I'm being called to deal with legacy a lot, now i'm bracing for undoing a lot of AI damage for the second half of it 😬
Paul_IPv6you just need a bit of patience. ask all the FORTRAN & COBOL folks about Y2K. ;)
Stacey Campbell@jasongorman C in 1986, ksh/sh/bash by 1992, Verilog in 2001. Kept finding jobs that needed nothing more than that.
A pal of mine picked up COBOL in the 90s and that saw her through to her retirement this year.
90s Script Kiddie@jasongorman I still get paid to write no-framework PHP and build webapps with plain HTML/CSS/php backends. I even write devops automation tools in PHP. Most people's idea of PHP is about a decade out of date - you can write secure, performant, multi-platform software with it, and it's easy to learn and get started with!