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Comment by intrepidhero | Hacker News Reader

I find that as I get older I have less time to learn the latest and greatest new shiny tech, while I really want to focus on deepening my understanding of topics I've already invested in. I feel annoyed when tech changes because I spent time learning the old thing and I can't get that time back. I think the core idea here is that with more demands on my time, I've become more choosy about how I spend it.

This study isn't about that. They've found an area of the brain in mice that seems to be related to motivation to make decisions with complex cost benefit analysis. This type of decision making is impaired when under stress, by mental health diagnosis, or, according to the study, by an aged brain. If any conclusion is worth drawing here it's the increased importance of mental health as we age.

This is not an argument for all of us to try to keep up with the shiny new language/framework/whirlwind.

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Programming and IT in general is such a bummer in that regard. 20 years of relearning how to do the same thing differently wears on you. I learned JavaScript 15+ years ago, and I’m still having to relearn that nonsense every couple years. “JavaScript on the server now!? What? Why? Ok, fine. Here we go again.”

Yes, I agree with the same sentiment. Part of my unwillingness to learn new shiny tech is that it doesn’t spark a deep interest and have to force myself through it. I still do catch up but skip some generations.

Though I understand that feeling, OTOH usually we can learn it much faster and easier since we know many of the concepts, and many of those are still used (function, request, response, serialization to name a few).

Tools however is harder. Elastic, graphql, docker, front end framework (angular, react vue), are very very different conceptually compared to the past technology.

It's not too hard to pick up new tech when you've been in the industry for a while. You can even do it on the job with some afterwork study.

To me the problem is the emphasis some companies place on knowing specific tech.

>Must have five years experience in Web development with a focus on front end frameworks eg react/angular and cloud experience (aws preferred)

>must have two years experience with the following; asp net 5.0, aspnet mvc 5.0, automapper, xunit, tiny ioc and azure Webapps

However, typical the good companies have the former. So you can spot it out pretty easy. Although I fear the industry is moving more to specific skill sets and certification. The certificates trend is being pushed harder as it makes a lot of money for these companies.

In my country I can easily fake the years experience. If you're good enough at the tools, you can bluff at the interview. Usually at least 3 from 4 companies will continue with the recruitment.

With certification, I don't think it'll happen in near future, due to how hard it is to certificate a programmer and how scarce they are right now. Though it's possible for outsourced foreign developers such as India to be required certification.

It's not hard, but as someone who's done it a few times before you lack intrinsic motivation. Something that is fun to people half your age is just work for you.

"afterwork study" for work sounds like "work" to me.

> You can even do it on the job with some afterwork study.

What this assertion misses is that many no longer want to work in their free time anymore. Even if I love programming ever since 12y/o I can no longer make myself care about $day_job when I can have a proper rest, which is precious and not that much anyway.

Angular and deeper rxjs stuff broke my brain for awhile.

Benefits over jquery were clear. However replacing one jquer my developer with 10 modern developers that got only a fraction of the work done.

Well that broke my brain too.

Now I’m in a situation of developing against k8 infrastructure, I’m seriously thinking of going back to compiled python programs that can be emailed. Just some people can actually get work done.

Many developers forget, that you don't go fishing locally using an aircraft carrier or battleships. A small raft is enough.

If your team is small, use tools that can perform the best on small team, if your team is big, use one that can support it. K8s is used for going big, angular is used for complex interface.

Resume Driven Development is a thing for a reason.

If your team is always gonna be small, then how are you going to learn the stuff that scales?

Are you going to wait get a job that allows you to do so?

You don't use that on production ever. Try to use it on dev server, local or test server all you want, but not production, at least until you know the cases and confident that your team can handle it on production.

Then you can still add that to your resume.

> compiled python programs that can be emailed

I learned Python programming almost 20 years ago by also writing a small script on my Linux machine (a Mandrake distribution), running it through py2exe and then copying it on a floppy disk, then get to work and use that .exe program to automate some stuff for me there.

That proved to me that programming can be very helpful sometimes, as in that example it provided me with lots of free time during work, on the behalf of the stuff I had just "automated" for myself. Very good times.

That's pretty funny but the V8 system rewrote what javascript is while retaining and adding onto the syntax, as you might have realized by now.

Just wondering but if not JavaScript on the server then what were you using previously?

You're using JavaScript? We've all moved on to TypeScript! ;)

But yeah, much of the "relearning", I've found, is to work with new sets of tools that solve problems that... we didn't have 15-20 years ago. Or, not to the same degree, at least. And some of those new problems and changes have benefits, some don't, some are solving self-imposed problems, some are "solving" problems that don't have concrete "solutions", only "opinions".

Learning a new tool when you have limited set of current tools is a good investment. But there is a aspect of marginal returns that comes into play here.

It's not just the increased demands on your time, but the knowledge that it's ticking away... As you get older you get more critical/anxious about wasting time and more reticent about investing in something that has no compelling return on investment.

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