Tokyo and tech through the eyes of a split pea

The difference over time

From a post on slashdot concerning “geeks” earning respect:

I’ve noticed one big difference. When a geek asks me what I do, I’ve been able to give the same answer since 1998: “I work full time for a company maintaining their sites with ASP and SQL Server.” Here’s a chronology of the responses:

1998: “What’s ASP?”
1999: “ASP sucks, man. It’s too hard.”
2000: “Wow, can I learn ASP? How hard is it? Because I’ve never done computer work, but I hear it makes a lot of money.”
2001: “Ha! ASP? You suck, that’s so old-school. You won’t have a job in a couple of years. I got a job at Pets.com making twice your salary, and I’m just a receptionist.”
2002: “ASP sucks, man. It’s all about .NET these days. Besides, you’ll be laid off in a week just like me. And Oracle’s the bomb, it’s worth every penny.”

2003: “ASP sucks, man. It’s all about PHP these days. And MySQL’s the bomb. It’ll have stored procedures any day now.” (Sorry, just had to throw that one in.)
2004: “ASP sucks, man. It’s all about J2EE these days.”
2005: “Wow, you have a full time job? Because I’m a programmer and I can’t find a job to save my ass.”

In Japan we have a saying that goes “石の上にも三年”, rougly translating to “One must sit on a rock for 3 years”. In otherwords, it takes at least that long for the rock to warm up and be comfortable to sit on, and as such, one should consider giving any new environment or situation around 3 years before choosing a new course if need be. It’s a respectable philosophy for sure, but then there are those who say people should have as many different experiences as they can while they are young. Seems I’m stuck standing on the rock, not warming it up but not leaving it either …