Stop doing resume driven development

In recent years with the barrier to entry into programming becoming much lower and the considerable growth in open-source software, the vast array of programming languages and frameworks available to developers has skyrocketed!

Whether you are looking to create the latest and greatest voice command app for home automation built with machine learning or just want to put together a simple static website, it has given us hundreds of programming languages and different frameworks to choose from to complete our different projects at hand.

This is great, a lot of the solutions on offer just work and are easy to get up and running with, but it does come with its drawbacks.

With the fast pace that the projects are moving at, developers are constantly chasing the latest "fast" or "fun" framework to use and often manage to work in using these new frameworks and languages in their day jobs without an actual reason to use it. Generally, this comes with a lot of overhead that isn't thought about or even spoken about before decisions are made.

Costs:

• Rewrite code for new framework/language
• Potential integration points to existing code that will lead to tech debt
• Team knowledge loss when changing framework/language
• Potentially no support for new framework/language

Benefits:

• Ability to write on a resume
• ?

Using frameworks or languages that are new or different just because you want to try them out and put them on your resume is costing everyone! It costs the business you are working for your time. It will cost your teammates time to get up to speed on the new tech. By doing so, you are essentially forcing everyone else to re-skill for no reason.

Most employers these days will allow you to take time out of your day or week to dedicate personal development. That would be a perfect time and opportunity to check out that fast compiler that people are raving about. Or that new static website framework that boasts server-rendered components. Using new tech on work projects without first assessing fit or viability or, at the very least, discussing it over with your team is not cool.

Conclusion

Learning is a huge part of a developer's role. However, there is a time and place to learn and implement new technologies. So let's stop doing resume driven development. Be productive. Be content. Be efficient.