[forgomonika]

I've worked with newbie programmers that think they are senior. I've worked with mid-level programmers that think they are senior and always ready to label others as being junior. And I've worked with really senior engineers that never comment on someone's skill level and instead focus on how to build them up and help them grow.

I don't necessarily blame anyone for falling into these categories. Sure there are annoying egos and some people can be overly confident when it's unwarranted. But it can be very difficult for people to figure out where they fit, especially when they don't know what they don't know.

[javajosh]

There is another category. Once I took a job in a new stack and was explicitly a junior dev in senior's clothing (no lying involved; the employer knew what they were getting). I thought it would be fun, but it was a deeply unpleasant experience. I realized then that you either stick with your basic stack or endure at intense ego pain with a half-life of ~4 years. It is NOT enough to have all the fundamentals down to instantly learn a new stack, the differences between languages is NOT just syntax, or a new build tool. It's an entire world in which you must learn to live. You can apply a lot of what you learned in the other world, but that will only help you make good decisions, and will NOT help you produce great code in the new world.

[gopher_space]

> that will only help you make good decisions, and will NOT help you produce great code in the new world.

Your code will be clear and, more importantly, you won't need to go back and change it because you took the time and had the knowledge to make good decisions.

Any code you write that interfaces with your old stack will seem uncanny and wizard-like to other devs.

[lampshades]

Thank you for writing this so that I know I’m not alone. I’ve seen so many people act like it’s no big deal to switch tech stacks that I thought I’d try it myself. It has been a humbling experience to the point I often ponder about going back.

[javajosh]

Glad it helped! I suspect that most people who don't think it's a big deal haven't done it for real and don't really know what it's like to do it in a professional environment. The pitfalls are many, not least of which is that you'll find yourself in the odd position of knowing a lot and being unable to express it in actual code. It's like having a stroke.

[mixmastamyk]

It's slow going for a number of months. But in a world with stack overflow never easier.

That said, I wouldn't change everything top-to-bottom or use completely different paradigms unless you are intending to learn something specific.