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It’s definitely easier to write new code, but faster? I doubt it.

I see a lot of the time programmers doing the easy/fun thing rather than the hard beneficial to the business thing.




Part of this is resume driven development.

Loyalty gets you very little in today's climate. Why should I spend time understanding the current system that was developed on yesterdays hotness?

I need to spend my time here developing on the latest trends on a new solution (learning more from running into the same walls the current system did) - not learning the domain knowledge + old framework, so I can move on after a year and earn more at the next place.

Is this good for the world? No. But unless you want to swing the hammock and work at institions that value incumbents, the incentive is to do whatever work improves your resume, not what benefits the company.

I don't personally like it, and I often see old systems that are just fine get thrown out and replaced with the a less featured replacement that grow into the same kludge as the first, but I can't ignore that when you do that you learn way more and have better examples to point at in interviews.


> Why should I spend time understanding the current system that was developed on yesterdays hotness?

Simple. Because that is your job: to solve problems for the company using the current technology that the company has the resources to handle.

Also, the newest hotness is not as hot as you probably think.


It never is. But incentives drive behaviour, and the incentives for someone's career in this market pull in that direction.


>but I can't ignore that when you do that you learn way more and have better examples to point at in interviews.

"I replaced an unmaintained, buggy legacy tool with a new version with X new features" >> "I maintained a legacy tool"




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