[mooreds]

This is a great point. I think there's a balance between "OOH, shiny new thing" and "kids these days". It always pays to play with new tech or otherwise learn about it. Both for you the developer (who avoids getting pigeon holed) and for the business (because there may be new capabilities or cost savings).

But introducing it willy nilly into production applications because you want to gain experience with it is bad. Bad for the business, at least. For you it might be resume driven development.

That's why I always advocate for time and space for developers to play with new things on the company's dime. Some good options:

- conferences

- hackfests

- spikes

After some investigation, you can layer in new tech where it makes sense, which makes for an even more compelling story on the resume.

Of course, you also have to have business buy-in that this is a worthwhile use of time. R&D and investing have a lot longer history than the craft of software engineering, so that's the approach I'd take.