Add my thoughts on "the cult of new"

[badlydrawnrob]

Everyone in the streets and the windows said, "Oh, how fine are the Emperor's new clothes! Don't they fit him to perfection? And see his long train!" Nobody would confess that he couldn't see anything, for that would prove him either unfit for his position, or a fool. Hans Christian Andersen : The Emperor’s New Clothes (1837)
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• When is a thing finished?
• What gives a thing value?

A slightly unstructured rambling rant. Good software shouldn't need updating, unless something breaks. I've left this tool alone for 5 years before,¹ and just like the old Apple adverts "it just works".² Now, how much people actually need these flashcards is up for debate! But nobody needs dead, stale, broken code.

Pandoc is stable, Markdown is stable, CSS is ... (horrid to write, but stable); you get the idea. I've had years where I've not used my own tool, but it's nice to know I can come back anytime and dive right in. Now my only worries are how long my Body of Work™ is around before it inevitably rots, but that's another story.³

Notes on a theme:

• Any good quotes on this theme?
• Only upgrade when it makes sense to!
• Avoid bloat and Reduce, Reduce, reduce!
• Some excellent talks from Evan Czaplicki or Rich Hickey
• Computer Science is hard. Keep it simple. Can you return 5 years later and understand it?

Javascript as a case in point

During my freelance days, I avoided Javascript on the whole, besides some jQuery plugins and simple code. It always felt to me as if young guys were flying ahead of me, always on the bleeding edge with a revolving door of projects, plugins, and frameworks. Yikes.

• How to avoid state (or do it in a sane way) examples #90

Also interesting:

"Data is fundamental to what we do ... anytime you make changes the most vocal ones are those who dislike what you've done. We don't just throw numbers in a spreadsheet" — Measuring design (or, you're not Google)

• The internet is rotting (the impermanence of things)
• I can't stop winning Idle Words and Pinboard creator post.

Footnotes

1. ⌚The same amount of time since Elm lang was updated, which has become a big bone of contention for the community, and many have moved on to other languages. I admire the creator's philosophy (such as this talk on economics) but also understand the frontend guys are often chasing the Next Best Thing™, while old timers often prefer stable (aka boring) and community-led projects. Or at least, something that has ongoing development. ↩

2. Besides a couple of niggles of course! 💭 Following that thought, it might upset a few people that development isn't ongoing, issues are unresolved, you never call anymore, so on; but in the grand scheme of things, how essential is it really that that feature is built? That a small error goes unfixed? If the software is free, you really have very little to complain about — do it yourself or wait. That's about it. Burnout is a real thing and working for free is only fun if it's a pet-project or some very tangible philanthropic purpose. ↩

3. 🌎 Avoiding trends and making your world move slowly. Remember all the projects you've worked on that are now dead and buried. Micro-deadlines, time-boxing tasks, avoiding timesinks and unnecessary fluff. It's too easy for a simple task, or an addition to documentation/issues to spill over into a timesink. Stop that. Trim the fat, do less, avoid distractions (or tangential thoughts/link-hopping), 80/20 rule, etc, etc. ↩