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Comment by mkozlows | Hacker News Reader

Nobody pushed you to use git when you were comfortable with svn? Nobody pushed you to use Docker when you were comfortable running bare metal? Nobody pushed you to write unit tests when you were comfortable not? Nobody pushed you to use CSS for layout when you were happy using tables?

Some of those are before your time, but: The only time you don't get pushed to use new technologies is when a) nothing is changing and the industry is stagnant, or b) you're ahead of the curve and already exploring the new technology on your own.

Otherwise, everyone always gets pushed into using the new thing when it's good.

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The engineers using svn were the ones who were pushing for git - I was the one saying "we can't, because none of the conversion tools competently preserve branch history, and it's even worse on repos that started in CVS". Noone responsible for repos was pushing for git, it was end-users pulling for it (and shutting up when they learned how much work it would cause :-) That looked nothing like the drug-dealer-esque LLM push I've been seeing for the last 3 years.

(Likewise with CVS to svn: "you can rename files now? and branches aren't horrible? Great, how fast can we switch?" - no "pushing" because literally everyone could see how much better it was in very concrete cases, it was mostly just a matter of resource allocation.)

In the context of this discussion, it feels more like ipv6 :-)

Git had obvious benefits over svn.

Docker has obvious benefits over bare metal.

Etc.

My own experiences with LLMs have shown them to be entertaining, and often entertainingly wrong. I haven't been working on a project I've felt comfortable handing over to Microsoft for them to train Copilot on, and the testimonials I've seen from people who've used it are mixed enough that I don't feel like it's worth the drawbacks to take that risk.

And...sure, some people have to be pushed into using new things. Some people still like using vim to write C code, and that's fine for them. But I never saw this level of resistance to git, Docker, unit tests, or CSS.

The resistance to those things was less angry, but it was there. giveupandusetables dot com no longer exists, but you can find plenty of chin-stroking blog posts about it. It was a big argument in the late aughts!

> Nobody pushed you to use git when you were comfortable with svn?

Generally, sensible companies held off on this sort of transition until the tool was mature and stable.

Way back in the day, I was involved in an abortive move from CVS to SVN. It went great for a week, then the SVN db corrupted itself irretrievably, taking a week's work with it... I think we finally moved for real about a year later, when SVN had abandoned its extremely unreliable BDB backend that early versions used.

Forcing adoption of [AI tool of the month] now feels a bit more like, say, adopting Darcs back during the DVCS wars than adopting git after it had won.

> Otherwise, everyone always gets pushed into using the new thing when it's good.

and then there is AS/400 and all the COBOL still in use which AI doesn't want to touch.

Some people don’t like to be pushed. They want their own rhythm.

But when you stop trying new stuff (“because you don’t want to”), it is a sign that your inner child got lost. (Or you have a depression or burnout.)

Lol. Surely this depends on what the new stuff is? Looks like all nuance goes out of the window when agents are involved.

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