[metrokoi]

Why would you say something so controversial yet so brave?

Developers may be the least humble type of engineers. There are many great things that we do, but we need to be taken down a peg every once in a while. Many developers are forced into this mindset out of fear of our marketable skills being made obsolete so I understand why many do this, and it is a compounding problem. Developers seek out jobs with the shiny new technology or push for their company to adopt it to be able to show that technology on their portfolio, then there are fewer positions with the boring but reliable technology and even more are forced to adopt the new technology.

[tomc1985]

Is that fear real though? I mean there are still job listings for VBA or ColdFusion engineers if that's really your thing.

I think our problem (and my our, I mean American) is that we are too obsessed with tech. This is coming from someone who grew up obsessed with computers, and not just writing code. You can tell this is true from looking at our ads, which are always touting the shiniest newest technological marvels. Even beauty products -- they sound so sciency without actually saying anything. Tech is our dogwhistle.

[splintercell]

My father-in-law who is a 58 year old software developer feels stuck at his current job because he has spent so much time on old and archaic technology that he doesn't feel confident enough to be able to go out there and get a new job in case he's laid off.

Personally speaking I spent far too much time working on a certain technology for four years and I felt trapped because getting a new job was difficult in new technologies.

There are clearly some Evergreen Technologies such as C/C++, but there are a lot of Technology switch don't land in that category and they evolved fast (js ecosystem for instance).