Keeping current is an important part of the disciplines used by software developers. It is time consuming and rewarding. It can be done in concentrated blocks through conferences or coursework, or sporatically on a regular basis. In response to this topic Dilip shares his approach to keeping current.
It is humanly impossible to keep pace with changing technologies.
So, we do the following:
- Stick to Microsoft products (You can not keep your two feet on ten stones).
- Allow the technologies to mature. Do not Just rush. Remember Silverlite?
- Spend daily 2-3 hours or weekly 10 hours to know what is going on around and study its strengths and weaknesses.
- Segregate Front, Middle and Back part of each application.
e.g. In memory SQL server 2014 is not a desperate need to address immediately. We were doing it indirectly by organizing data in various file groups – Static, Semi-dynamic and totally dynamic (e.g. the List of Countries do not change every day- so it is static while the purchase transactions are absolutely dynamic.)
The middle tier also is less affected by changes in technologies. It is the front that drastically gets affected due to changes in technologies e.g. framework 4.5 – asynchronous events handling etc. or newer versions of JavaScript or Jquery etc.
We do not disturb existing applications or we just make changes in them to the extent easily possible only.
However, new applications, we try to make use of newer technologies or approaches such as mvc, mvvc etc.
At the end of the day, the user won’t spend money every year as they expect to use the technologies for a minimum period of 5 years.
Finally, we do not get carried away to just show off that we are techies and know the latest. We do not forget the fact that we exist only because the client trusts us and we try to do the transitions as smoothly and as seamlessly as possible by taking client in total confidence.
What is your approach to keeping current? What if you can’t restrict your efforts to a single stack such as Microsoft? Feel free to add to the conversation online or drop me an email at btaylor@sswug.org.
Cheers,
Ben