And so begins the tales of a software curmudgeon…
April 20th, 2006
I was reading Raph Koster’s entry today on self-promotion, bloviating, and pontificating and I realized that I, for a long time, have been in good practice in all three areas of skill — though woefully behind the times in my application of said skills.
And though I have graduated to the grand title of software curmudgeon (I prefer the second defintion: irascible and cantankerous suite me much better than ill-tempered), the one thing I have learned in this software world of out-sourcing, in-sourcing, innovation, bubbles, bursts, paradigms, and fads is that one must keep oneself relevant.
I was the last of one generation and the first of another. In school we scheduled time on terminals and spent hours in a basement shielding our eyes as we emerged to the often overcast light of a new day(it was Ithaca after all). But when I entered the workforce, we all had our own personal computers no longer developing software for the privilaged few, but for small businesses and individuals.
It was a new age and those in my generation were the first to do a great many things. But time went on and patterns of operation and communication set in. With each new wave of technical revolution (the network, the relational database, the web, instant messaging, and now web 2.0), my generation found ourselves slower and slower to adopt. Not because we did not want to embrace the new paradigms, but simply because after a while, one gets tired of reinventing oneself.
But that is the price of this profession: stay relevant or perish.
And so I begin this blog. For through this, I will connect with those of you who stumble across (and upon whom I foist) the site. And I will pontificate, bloviate, and self-promote and you will smile fondly or raise your fists at the words of this curmudgeon, respond, and through that response, help me stay relevant.
Entry Filed under: General Musings
4 Comments Add your own
1. mikesty | April 22nd, 2006 at 2:53 am
One entry found for curmudgeon.
Main Entry: cur·mud·geon
Pronunciation: (”)k&r-’m&-j&n
Function: noun
Etymology: origin unknown
1 archaic : MISER
2 : a crusty, ill-tempered, and usually old man
I agree with your analysis of any sort of IT work - one must remain current to stay alive. Clearly, all of the certifications and degrees will help a fantastic start, but it is staying relevant that keeps oneself around. I know this pretty well despite my age and lack of experience, and this knowledge will hopefully keep me at the head of a fast-changing workforce, and fuel my success.
While I’ve heard this argument before, the part I really enjoyed about your post was the discussion of how one becomes tired of reinventing things. I see that as potentially frustrating and a valid reason for a person who would normally be riding the “new wave” of technology like Kelly Slater rides waves of the sea.
The most fantastic thing is, I’ve realized several critical flaws in blogs that I might be able to fix. Perhaps we can discuss this at some point? I really enjoy reading good blogs, thus I assume that I will enjoy writing good blogs
I am starting to believe that blogs are indeed the paradigm of the web.
2. sonjaya | April 22nd, 2006 at 4:35 pm
Now is as good as time as any
As I am justing starting up this blog, this is a good time to hear ideas of improvement based on dealings with other blogs. Also, I would be interested in knowing what you think has worked really well.
3. mikesty | April 22nd, 2006 at 5:38 pm
At the beginning of this article, you are enticed to check oiut Raph’s blog, and subsequently check out the Boston Globe article on how blogs can save your butt. I suppose this really isn’t a “critical flaw” as I proposed, but it’s still a tad frustrating that I have to read other things before I read your blog, which was my original goal. Well, I don’t have to read them, but I’m better of if I did. No big deal, but hey , just taking notes
All that aside, let’s take a look at some other new internet “trends” that I’m involved in:
- digg
digg.com is a cool site that can be described as being the offspring of wikipedia and slashdot. digg is a place where any registered member can post any tech related story they’ve found on the internet. Hell, it doesn’t even have to be a tech related story, it can be “10 good photoshop tricks” or simple guides such as that.
Digg is almost entirely controlled by the users. Every story submitted appears on a recently added list. Users browsing this list can check these out, comment on them, and if they like they very much, they can “digg” them. The more diggs a story collects and the faster it gets all of them, the more likely it is to get boosted up to the front page of digg.
The problem with digg is that mob mentality and false information can run rampant, and spread like wildfire on a dry day in SoCal!
Digg can be a breeding ground for bad things, which are iconified by the mass amounts of diggs they recieve.
On the same token, backlash can occur as well. If the initial commenter of a post replies with an average to above average criticism of the article, the readers will immediately see this first reply when they see the initial post itself, and respond accordingly. Sometimes this first post will contain instructions to “un-digg” the post, where it will sink back into the abyss of the internet.
A very interesting thing is, each individual comment can be dugg (not on the same level that initial articles/posts are dugg). The more diggs your comment gets, the more likely people are to read it. If it receives negative diggs, it will drop below most viewer’s “viewing thresholds”. My VT is set at the default of -4. A lot of times I come across good counter-arguments that the mob mentality forced it down to a -30 or less digg rating.
Yet, if false information goes unchecked, it will spread like wildfire. Recently an article containing miscellanious Windows “tweaks” was posted and received many diggs. Yet, there was much speculation from the higher-end techies who realized that half of the tweaks really didn’t do anything. Of course, there was also over-scrutiny, with some saying that valid tweeks were nonsense and should not be used.
One thing to note is that most of the content on digg is from a blog post. Someday this blog may ascend the rank of digg. I could ramble on about it for quite a while. In fact, I was even planning to write a list of internet fads I partake in .. but I don’t have time for that
4. sonjaya | April 24th, 2006 at 5:13 am
For the record, the second definition I was refering to was:
curmudgeon
n : a crusty irascible cantankerous old person full of stubborn ideas
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