Steven Trefethen has very good blogpost about the endless stream of new technologies coming from Redmond.
He says:
Will there ever be some sort of stabilization period where apps can mature and the technology settles into a known state where developers are comfortable about the foundation from which their working?
It definitly is very difficult to keep up with all the new stuff, before knowing the 'old' stuff entirely.
(.NET 1.1 stuff is suddenly 'deprecated' in .NET 2.0, oh well move on...)
He asks:
What about you, how are you dealing with all of this? Or are you dealing with it?
Well not really. Although I keep an eye on the new technology and occasionaly play with it. But mostly, I think, it is better to watch the cat out of the tree. (That is a dutch saying "De kat uit de boom kijken") It basically means you can do a lot to get the cat out of the tree, but if you wait a little longer the cat may decide to come out of tree itself.
And you know what?
The more things change, the more they stay the same!'
3 comments:
I totally agree with you on "de kat uit de boom te kijken", (Afrikaans: Die kat uit die boom te kyk). You could end up chasing a rabbit. Especially in IT.
Patience is a virtue, and helps you to focus on the important things.
Its also incredibly tedious and expensive if you leap on every new thing, a lot of wasted effort can go in especially if the "new thing" ends up to be fairly short lived.
I am fond of "last year's model". An americanism about buying last year's car and not the newer car. The newer car to a great extent is not improved over the old but it will be more expensive and often more troublesome.
My company Publish or Perish, Inc. often recommends older more stable technology. We know where the problems are and can fix them easier.
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