Posts categorized as: no-silver-bullet

When I got started, I didn’t know a damn thing about software engineering. It was 2001. I’d just earned my Computer Science degree and was starting my first job. I’d taken the one software engineering course my university offered. I thought I was ready for any coding task they could throw at me. I couldn’t have been more wrong. If you do the math, you can tell I’m 20 years into my career.

Our industry is possessed by a deadly cycle. As we build software systems, we always run into complexity and problems. We see happier teams using a shiny new technology, and we run away to its greener pastures. Eventually, we discover the same complexity and problems that made us run away in the first place. I’ve seen this cycle multiple times. From Java, EJBs, and Spring to Ruby and Rails From Ruby and Rails to Node.