Old Geek
One of the biggest issues I see with this mentality going forward is<p>a) lack of mentors for younger generations;<p>b) repeating the same mistakes our generation made.<p>a) is bad. b) is worse.<p>a) and b) combined lead to fads in which one burns tremendous amounts of time figuring out what it is and how it works, only to become obsolete by the time one masters it.<p>Old people like me pick their technology very carefully, because they&#x27;ve already burned exorbitant amounts of time mastering all kinds of technology fads during their lifetime, only to find that most of them don&#x27;t fix, or make the problems even worse.<p>In plain English: we reject 99% of the fads out there because we can tell from experience what will work and what won&#x27;t, and what the challenges and pathologies will be if we deploy on that particular fad. We don&#x27;t reject fads a priori just because it is something new, but on the very simple metric:<p>could it be as bulletproof as possible, so I don&#x27;t get a call at two o&#x27; clock in the morning?<p>Yes: continue research. Attempt breakage. Re-evaluate based on the results of breakage.<p>No: reject.<p>Where we, the old people failed: I take on apprentices. Most of my peers do not. That is why we end up with, for example,<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=Ms3EifxZopg" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=Ms3EifxZopg</a><p>...where a few lines of AWK code would do. And my peers are nowadays almost embarrassed to even mention such robust technology, instead of actively teaching and promoting it:<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;dtrace.org&#x2F;blogs&#x2F;ahl&#x2F;2016&#x2F;08&#x2F;02&#x2F;i-love-go-i-hate-go&#x2F;#comment-56586" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;dtrace.org&#x2F;blogs&#x2F;ahl&#x2F;2016&#x2F;08&#x2F;02&#x2F;i-love-go-i-hate-go&#x2F;#...</a><p>this is where we failed: to teach. To take on apprentices. This is why humanity keeps repeating the same mistakes over and over again, and nowhere does that appear to be so acute as in information technology.<p>We can do better. Take on apprentices, and have them commit to teaching others once they themselves become masters.<p>I don&#x27;t mean casual mentorship; I mean a formal apprenticeship. Yes, that means you Bryan, and you Adam. And you Jerry. And you Max. And you Robert. You know who you are.