Day 536 of 1000

I am getting to be one of the older guys at wherever I work.  This is not one of those “there are two kinds of old technology guys” jokes, but there are two kinds of old guys:

  • The kind who learns a technology then tries to use only that technology through the rest of their career.
  • The kind who continually learns new technology to see if they can find new techniques and tools to improve their capabilities.

I like to think I fit into the second category although I am not sure that is entirely true.  It fits into the life-long learning educational model that we tried to ingrain in our kids during our homeschool years.  Part of the problem with these categories is that not any of the technologies, processes, and methods are perfect and almost all of even the very best ones become obsolete pretty quickly.  Add into that the fact that something that seemed like a great, innovative new idea at the time of its inception turns out to not have been such a great an idea in practice and a horrible idea when it gets older.

Part of the “fun” of my new job will be to produce a product from a technology that was mediocre (at best) when it was brand new, has not fared well since, and has a minute contingent of acolytes who still have the religion pushing it for all it is worth.  In the end, these are all personal issues.  This mediocre technology was used to develop something that is really pretty cool.  If we can get past the personal allegiances and work together we can do something that is worthwhile and can actually make a pretty amazing social contribution.