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Ask Slashdot: How To Avoid Becoming a Complacent Software Developer?

An anonymous reader writes: Next year will be the start of my 10th year as a software developer. For the last nice years I've worked for a variety of companies, large and small, on projects of varying sizes. During my career, I have noticed that many of the older software developers are burnt out. They would rather do their 9-5, get paid, and go home. They have little, if any, passion left, and I constantly wonder how they became this way. This contradicts my way of thinking; I consider myself to have some level of passion for what I do, and I enjoy going home knowing I made some kind of difference.

Needless to say, I think I am starting to see the effects of complacency. In my current job, I have a development manager who is difficult to deal with on a technical level. He possesses little technical knowledge of basic JavaEE concepts, nor has kept up on any programming in the last 10 years. There is a push from the upper echelon of the business to develop a new, more scalable system, but they don't realize that my manager is the bottleneck. Our team is constantly trying to get him to agree on software industry standards/best practices, but he doesn't get it and often times won't budge. I'm starting to feel the effects of becoming complacent. What is your advice?

1 of 275 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Business by Arker · · Score: 0, Troll

    "Umm... JSON is a pretty significant force behind modern Web design."

    Exactly why it needs to be nuked from orbit.

    "Umm...Objective-C is the ONLY [good] way (besides Swift, which you'd hate even more) to write software for iOS devices, and the best language for programming Macs."

    Neither of which is a good reason to use it, but it's actually a great language despite the failed attempt to defend it - it was the one thing on his list that did not fit.

    "However, some folks still wear mullets and pine for the trash-80..."

    And some of us use computers for practical reasons, rather than as fashion accessories.

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