All targets are moving targets | Hacker News Reader

All targets are moving targets

jacquesmattheij.com

30 pointsfreshfey5 comments

Something I've observed as a programmer for the last 20 years: there will always be people who don't want to move on, feel like it's too tiresome to learn something new, and feel like their technology is all they'll ever need to know. It's striking how they'll have heated arguments defending their old dying techniques until their death or retirement. Throw a rock and you can hit such a person, just be sure it's not you. There's a funny and insightful book called Somebody Moved My Cheese, which covers this aspect of the ever changing world. The book only takes an hour or so to read and is quite charming.

There's an inverse curve to being the dinosaur who doesn't want to change. When your technology is phasing out its hard to find work, but when the technology is old and crufty and you're one of the few people who know it then you are in demand again.

If you're planning on riding that curve, pick your obsoleting technologies very, very carefully. There's plenty of old tech out there which is just plain dead.

Some time back, it was mainframers, and I'd refer to it as "mainframe disease". Knowing all you would ever have to know, and not pushing the boundaries. Note that I actually knew a few exceptional mainframe programmers who gave me some very valuable tips to pushing past the easy boundaries of the system, and I don't mean to imply all had this mindset. But many did.

Some years later a good friend reported finding a similar situation at a firm which had started as a Sun shop, but was increasingly relying on Linux. Many of the old Sun hands exhibited just the tendencies I'd noted some time earlier among mainframe programmers/operators.

I agree with the premise and it's a smart article, but the outcomes aren't mutually exclusive. You can recognize imminent change and thus plan for the future while still suing to protect a revenue stream. If it makes economic (both directly or indirectly) sense to sue, people will sue - regardless of future innovations they may or may not have in the pipeline.

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