Have you ever asked yourself why you (or your team) use a specific technology? I find that lately, fewer and fewer people ask this question which is sad.
For more than a decade now, my approach toward new technology has been to ask this question. Do I have use for it or it's just FOMO?
In most cases, the "tried and tested" tech. stack is just fine, also has the upside that I don't have to learn, or find out the quirks and best practices of this new technology, be it a JavaScript framework, a different database, or even a new programming language, especially if I don't need it.
This, of course, doesn't mean that I don't learn about new technologies. I do, all the time, but first I just wait.
Wait for the community's feedback on it, wait to see if it will squeeze itself into my timeline again and again because if that tech is that groundbreaking and important I will hear about it eventually.
I also like to play with new tech. like Zig or Bun. But it stops right there, on the playground. Maybe, if I can devote enough time, I'll implement a small project with new technologies just to see how it plays with my current understanding of things and what new concepts could I learn by using it.
It's fine to use the tried and tested, in my experience, 99.9% of the projects I came across don't need complex distributed microservices for example, or 30-step CI pipelines.
It's fine because it's reliable, it's battle-tested, and exhaustively scrutinized by others. The lack of scrutinization is one of the major problems with current software development IMO.
Furthermore, established technologies usually have a larger community supporting them, which means a larger resource pool of problem-solving guidelines, tutorials, and solutions.
But here's the kicker: it's not really about the tech., it's about the project. It's easy to get caught up in the flash and excitement of what's new and shiny. But remember tech. is a tool. It’s there to get the job done. Often, the 'old reliables' can do that job just as well, if not better.
Without being afraid to be ridiculed for using the "old and boring", choose the boring but stable instead of the new that doesn't pay the bills.
Cover photo by SatyaPrem