Today I want to point you guys to a blog post from software engineer John Sonmez. The article is called The Development Pendulum. John makes some excellent points about the nature of development in today’s industry – specifically those who ascribe to agile philosophies such as test-driven development, continuous builds, and pair programming. You should definitely take the time to pop over and read his full post, but we’ll discuss some of his main points here.
The crux of John’s post is this: progress in the development field is a function of balancing – and shifting between – the old and the new. We’ve said many times here how important it is to be able to identify and adapt to changes and progress in the industry. This hold true for the programs and equipment we use, the skills we pursue and develop, and the way we do business. But perhaps a tad lost in that is the other side of the coin; relying on what is proven and what woks, and being able to blend it together with the new.
John has some great examples listed in his article. JavaScript came into its own when jQuery was introduced. Web apps weighing page refreshes led to AJAX browser clients, which in turn has led to the current abundance of JavaScript and HTML5. Even the whole concept of agile methodologies wasn’t a clean break from the traditional – much more of a derivative, some would suggest and evolution.
His point is salient and a very timely reminder – we aren’t looking to find the newest thing and abandon what we have always known. We are looking to merge what we know works with what we believe can work better. We’re looking to adapt.