Your Progress As A Programmer Is All Up To You
I have been writing and rewriting a post for the better part of a year on this same thing. I think I've finally accepted that a majority of programmers actually are not interested in learning new things.<p>I got into software because there was so much to learn and explore, so this realization still baffles me. Why on earth would someone want to do this job and not want to learn new things? It's like a baseball player who hates being outside.<p>Not only that, but often times I'm faced with the prospect like the author's, where people I've worked with actively prevent those around them from learning new things on the job. "No, don't write this standalone module in Python, our standard is PHP; it was good enough 5 years ago, it's good enough now!" (in a four man shop).<p>As someone who loves constantly learning more, it's suffocating to be around people who are so paralyzed. I simply cannot fathom the fear that drives someone to say to the offer to learn something new on the job, "no thanks, I'm happy becoming obsolete, and you can't learn it either, because I might have to one day support it, and I'm not interested in learning anything new!"