I was thinking the other day, why am I not more of an early adopter when it comes to some things? I came across this post recently that captures my sentiments… It is nice to see some reflection on this from someone in web development because that is an area where there is hyperactivity in new libraries, framworks, tools and language extensions.
https://dev.to/ben/the-zen-of-missing-out-on-the-next-great-programming-tool
It is interesting in a sense, because it is like trading in that you can go backwards in time and find a perfect time when you could have started something. But for me, the opportunity cost consideration has saved a lot of frustration dealing with things that were not in a state that would leave me sane. I think there is pressure these days to embrace the “just do it” mentality, but with learning curves involved - patient strategy is important and some hidden accumulated learning costs are just deferred until the most inopportune time.
I know there is some experience I’m missing, not being there during the formative evolution - and someone has to be there for that, but I think someone that continually studies and improves their software engineering and development understanding in general can enter at “good enough” times and apply and benefit from broad perspective. Luckily, I am still thinking late comer guilt is not remorse. Wow, that was quite a rambling…