
Software is eating the world: Why you need to question your current career - cognitiveosman
https://www.cognitiveosman.com/software-is-eating-the-world-part-1-why-you-need-to-question-your-current-career/
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gumby
Some things are inherently transient (i.e. will be discarded and rewritten) so
why not do them as quickly as possible and use the latest and greatest?
Examples: a business dashboard (yes they still exist) or some back end for an
IoT gadget that will probably get canceled, and if not, well, you won't be
around (but today you will be rewarded for speed).

Some things will outlast your lifetime. COBOL banking systems are still
undergoing active maintenance, and the aircraft reservation systems are stuck
in the 60s/70s. Unmanned sacecraft can operate for decades and the hardware,
at least, is not replaceable.

The trick is to figure out the non-obvious criteria that cause the thing
you're working on to fall into one of the other bucket. Nobody thought the
banking systems would last so long (else there wouldn't have been a Y2K
crunch). And some of those quick-and-dirty business systems stick around
forever.

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cognitiveosman
Really nice dimension you highlighted - It is indeed many legacy systems are
running business critical application which are quite expensive to replace, we
see that in the finance, insurance, banking, and aviation domain. On important
dimension to consider when learning technologies is to always invest on
learning the fundamentals which rarely change with time. For example,
investing on developing sound understanding of TCP/IP protocol will be helpful
regardless of what technology vendor you will use and the basics remain
(almost timeless)

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roundthecorner
What about time to learn? I am one of those older average devs stuck in small
scale design and development tasks that start to feel like a burden when you
are on the wrong side of 40s. Time or lack of it seems a bigger factor right
now as compared to the points mentioned in the article. Finding time to learn
something new while fulfilling one's responsibilities in life while trying to
desperately hold on to the current job feels overwhelming. Time management in
short might be more useful than all the other things combined. Or maybe i am
just an old geezer.

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cognitiveosman
Well, Indeed I agree: It is quite challenging to balance learning, life, and
career development. Actually, I am planning to write a specific article on
this - How to properly choose and learn technologies. I have an article on
time management you might like [https://www.cognitiveosman.com/few-tips-and-
tricks-you-are-m...](https://www.cognitiveosman.com/few-tips-and-tricks-you-
are-missing-on-time-management-that-will-boost-your-productivity/)

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revskill
My stack is interesting. It's about SQL.

Non-programmers could learn, understand and use SQL for their need.

So, i migrated from a RoR stack, which uses Active Record into the SQL to API
approach. That means, i put non-programmers into the center of my stack.

That said, developers will need to build more strong abstraction, so that non-
programmers could stand on their own to build their things. It's not the job
of developers.

Developers is to build foundation.

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cognitiveosman
Hi revskill, seems very cool! I would glad to know more about the stack.

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revskill
Hi, there're many SQL to API solutions there, any one could work.

What i mean is, if i would be not the maintainer of my projects later on, i
don't need developers to maintain (and maybe adding features), because non-
programmers could use SQL to build their stuffs.

So, the less code for logic, the better.

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exabrial
> investment in recent and modern technologies could be cumbersome on the
> beginning, but they will be very rewarding in forms of higher support,
> better UX and productivity

I'm incredible tired of this productivity phrase being thrown around at whim.
These claims are rarely verified.

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cognitiveosman
Well, I agree the statement could be over-generalized. It is indeed case by
case. For example, I can objectively claim that React based website with
modern UX will have higher user experience as compared to static HTML - the
claims are easily verifiable on the extreme ends. But on the other hand, is
Flutter better than React Native just because it is newer or will provide more
business value? I find it tough to answer without sound experience and
analysis.

