Reflections of an “Old” Programmer
I&#x27;m a bit older than the author. Every time I feel like I&#x27;m &quot;out of touch&quot; with the hip new thing, I take a weekend to look into it. I tend to discover that the core principles are the same, this time someone has added another C to MVC; or the put their spin on an API for doing X; or you can tell they didn&#x27;t learn from the previous solution and this new one misses the mark, but it&#x27;ll be three years before anyone notices (because those with experience probably aren&#x27;t touching it yet, and those without experience will discover the shortcomings in time.)<p>When learning something new, I find that this group implemented with $NEW_THING in a completely different way than that group did an implementation with the exact same $NEW_THING. I have a harder time understanding how the project is organized than I do grokking $NEW_THING. And when I ask &quot;why not $THAT_THING instead?&quot; I get blank stares, and amazement that someone solved the problem a decade ago.<p>Sure, I&#x27;ve seen a few paradigm shifts, but I don&#x27;t think I&#x27;ve seen anything Truly New in Quite Some Time. Lots of NIH; lots of not knowing the existing landscape.<p>All that said, I hope we find tools that work for people. Remix however you need to for your own edification. Share your work. Let others contribute. Maybe one day we&#x27;ll stumble on some Holy Grail that helps us understand sooner, be more productive, and generally make the world a better place.<p>But nothing&#x27;s gonna leave me behind until I&#x27;m dead.