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Just a Personal Point of View
The Dangers of Stagnation
16-Jun-2006      by Gary L. Cole Jr.

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There are a lot of people who do not like change in their field. At one time, I was one of them. I was a major supporter of the status quo, did not want to learn the newest languages and fought tooth and nail against doing so. I was happy knowing Pascal and saw no need to learn C++. I believed anything could be written in Pascal, so why learn another language? Of course, with that outlook, we’d still be writing in Cobol, or worse, Assembly Language.  

I also was much happier programming DOS applications than I am Windows. In fact, after Windows changed the way we program, I simply could not wrap my mind around it. I was bewildered by the code that created the windows and no matter how hard I tried, I could not create a working Windows application. It did not help that when I was in college they were still teaching programming from a DOS perspective, with Turbo C++. If Borland had not invented C++ Builder (with which I was finally able to teach myself windows programming), I believe I would be out of the programming field altogether.

Now, I could have simply hung on and continued to create DOS applications in Turbo Pascal or Turbo C++. That would have been the easy solution. I look back and see certain people I know who followed that sort of path.

One person I know was a mainframe programmer. I never used a mainframe that filled an entire room, but I have always assumed they were similar to today’s servers. This mainframe programmer refused to change. He held onto the belief that he would always be able to find work on mainframes. So today, he is selling life insurance. Granted he is good at the job and is recognized as a top producer for the company he works for, but he is not out of the computer industry because of choice.

Another person who went to school with me, like me, found Windows programming to be a difficult transition. Unlike me, he refused to use C++ Builder because he viewed the WYSIWYG aspect to be beneath him. An ego, which I admit I have, is a dangerous thing in any industry.

I always considered him to be a superior programmer to me, but he could not put his mind around the event driven model of Windows programming. He wanted to continue to control the flow of the program to his wishes, instead of the users wishes. He also decided that there would always be DOS programs to build. He, too, is now out of the computer industry.

It's not just individuals; I also see companies that follow the easy path. Just recently on a company’s messageboard, a customer asked when a tool would be made available for the Net Framework. The company response was that they do not have the time nor the resources necessary to make the tool available for the Net Framework. If they stick with that, they will soon see their tool becoming obsolete and not used because it is not keeping up with the industry’s needs.

So what am I trying to say here? Change is not always easy. But those who refuse to change will end up obsolete and standing on the outside looking in with the computer industry. So the next time you are fed up because the new programming tool does not do what the old tool did, do not go back to the obsolete tool. Move forward and learn what the new tool does, and most importantly, be willing to adapt. Holding onto outdated tools because they are comfortable for you is professional suicide in the computer world.

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