Changes and IT

I always find it really funny during playoffs (baseball, basketball, hockey, football, etc.) when people suddenly adopt these superstitions. You know what I'm talking about. The baseball player who refuses to shave because "it might cause bad luck". Or the hockey player who taps the pads of his goalie in a particular sequence because "it's good luck". Or the developer who always does things in a particular way because he's "always done it that way before and it's worked". People don't like change.

One of the most fascinating things about the IT industry, whether you work on mainframes, minis or PC class servers, is that the technology changes. It doesn't always change quickly but you don't always change the course of an ocean liner quickly either. (Although I bet the Lusitania wished that you could.) The process of making steel hasn't really changed in a long time. Neither has the process for making plate glass. IT? Yeah, it changes.

But you know, change cause problems. Changes require people to learn new things. Changes require people to adapt. Darwin recognized this a long time ago and wrote a book about it, some of which is actually applicable to the IT field. As new technology enters the field it is up to the developer to understand the technology and adapt his personal best practices to the new technology. Yes, you may have done this dozens of times in the past, but the technology has changed and maybe, just maybe, you shouldn't be doing this in the future.

Unlike Darwin's theory, failure to adapt will not cause your extinction, but it will limit what you can work on in the future. Embrace the technology and embrace the change. Learn to take your personal best practices and apply them to the new technology. They worked once and they can work again, but you need to make an effort.