> I've wasted so much time digging into tools that I've never used again.
Don’t think of it this way. Learning new tools is almost never a waste of time, you just don’t know when you’ll need the lessons learned next. But you will.
Don’t think of it this way. Learning new tools is almost never a waste of time, you just don’t know when you’ll need the lessons learned next. But you will.
Compare that to understanding C or UNIX. There are skills that decay much slower than others.
It sounds like you got stuck learning more trivial things before you had a good foundation in something more substantial (like C or UNIX).
If it weren't for the rampant ageism in the industry, that job might be a perfect fit for someone in their 60s who has already written a few million lines of C and is happy to help less experienced people just get unblocked.
Instead it often falls to the "junior senior" because the "senior seniors" are all pushing 30 and need to work on portable skills.
(Just my observation of the industry, maybe your own case was different.)
Correct! Knowledge around C, Linux, CPUs and optimization last many decades.
Knowledge of tools and libraries in high-churn languages last years at best.
Your point about wasting your finite life dealing with webpack still stands, but just want everyone to know that there is a ray of light in frontend.