Times and trends change
As a technology professional, it is easy to get swallowed by hyperbole and the latest trends in technology. At the same time, some ideas catch on, like design patterns and object-oriented design. Other trends look like ugly fads, such as noSQL and Java Server Pages. I am not immune to these trends, but I tend to be more pragmatic than the average developer regarding new technologies. I suppose being in the development business for fifteen years does that to a person. This week on the blog, I want to talk about keeping fresh as a technology professional.
Google posted an interesting statistic for technology professionals. In 2001, a Gigabyte of storage cost roughly $10; today, that gigabyte costs ten cents. In twelve years, the prince has fallen by an exponential amount from kindergarten to high school graduation. In that same amount of time, technology has changed dramatically. When we founded E3 Systems, we were excited about a new technology from Microsoft known as MS Tag. Today, the Microsoft tag technology is discontinued and will disappear in 2015. This is the inevitable march of progress and the invisible hand of the technology marketplace.
This puts technology companies and professionals in a difficult situation. Keeping your technology skills up to date means making educated guesses about what trends to learn and which ones to ignore. If you guess correctly, you can make millions of dollars. If you guess wrong, you can wind up unemployed without any prospects. So what is a company or professional to do faced with this reality? A professional or company concentrates on training.
A technology profession or company that does not focus on training is like a shark that cannot swim; it will drown and die. Training makes it possible to stay on top of what you need to know as technologies come and go. To remain relevant, a technology company or developer needs to update their skill set every eighteen months.
You see this progression at E3 systems as we moved from Microsoft.Net web forms to MVC4. We have much cleaner data management with Entity Framework and code first than when we started using Advanced Data Objects .Net. We are also migrating away from VB.NET to C#. All of these moves are natural progressions and related to the technology needs of our potential customers. We will continue to make these changes as necessary.
The most exciting of these trends is the growth of the mobile web and the use of technologies like HTML5, Knockout.js , and CSS3 to build websites that look good on tablets, phones, and PCs. I am proud of how we at E3 Systems have pioneered this approach to our applications.
Unlike many technology professionals, I have stayed alive in this business because I have kept my skills up to date and avoided the hyperbole and fads that plague this industry. It has also informed the products our company offers. Drop us a line today, and we can show you.
Until next time.
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