[waxwander]

I've had the opposite experience, with older programmers balking at new libraries, techniques, and setting up any environment they're not used to. If it doesn't work right away they go back to what they know. I know one guy who absolutely refuses to learn c++ because it doesn't compile for him and he only "trusts" c. Another who writes only in good ol' python2.7 (scipy dropping support; subprocess bugs; cough cough). Younger people tend to be aware of and use newer tools. But we're all bias I suppose.

[telchar]

I dream of the day I'm happy and productive enough with one set of tools that I refuse to switch to another. I still largely feel like I'm wandering the desert when it comes to tooling, where a new toolset looks good from a distance but when I start using it I discovered the ugly underside and start looking for greener pastures.

[blt]

Tell me about it, I'm using tensorflow now and it does amazing things, but the API is so bulky for anything besides setting up the computational graph... Planning to check out pytorch for next project. Imo most dev environments and software leave a lot to be desired, we should not settle.