Who is the next dinosaur?

Maybe it’s midlife. Maybe it’s too much free time. Maybe it’s just a side effect for designing the next generation platform for something... Whatever the root cause, I’ve been pondering lately what’s going to be the next Legacy Technology™. I think Hal may have a viable theory.

Oh, you developers will go nuts. You’ll find legacy projects within your own organizations where you can hide and use old technologies rather than wanting to work on new things in technologies you don’t care for. Or you’ll quit your job to move to a company that hasn’t adopted these technologies yet. I have had many a friend and colleague followed this path on previous transitions. One of two things happens. They find they can’t hide from the technology transition forever and eventually, and unhappily, make it themselves. Or they give up on their career growth and happily hide away in legacy niches for decades, milking money out of the demands on a shrinking expertise pool. I have one friend who quite literally left $ Millions on the table because he couldn’t bring himself to move off a beloved but legacy technology in order to take a new job. Or ask the pool of Cobol developers who had one last great hurrah fixing old apps for Y2K, and then found themselves on the unemployment line.
Dear Developer, excuse me while I slap you silly

Yeah, it’s an old post, but it’s been sitting in my drafts folder for a year and a half. I was busy learning the new stuff. (When I wasn’t coping with teenagers. Heh.)

What’ve you been up to?