One theory I have of why modern web development has become a bit dysfunctional:
Most of the time, a venn diagram of “tech you need to focus on to improve your career” and “tech that’ll make the product you’re working on great” is just two almost separate circles.
@baldur This is a good point. Sometimes people learn a new technology because they think they need it to keep their skills relevant, not because it will make their product better.
Then again, how do you tell the difference? A lot of snake oil out there. Count the number of times "blazing fast" or "lightweight" or other vague marketing-speak is used in the average GitHub readme.
@baldur One theory I have of why modern web development has become a bit dysfunctional: Most of the time, a venn diagram of “tech you need to focus on to improve your career” and “tech that’ll make the product you’re working on great” is just two almost separate circles.
100% this.
Yeah. I don't blame developers. I know from personal experience that it can get really hard to sort out. And we usually have to trust somebody because employers rarely give you space to experiment to test it for suitability (they should, though, but that's a separate issue).
It isn't even just a question of snake oil (though there is a lot of that). Many tools are _amazing_ if you work in a company with hundreds or more but are Certain Project Doom™ for a three person dev team