Ask HN: How do you keep up with current trends?

[jman1]

Its been now close to a decade and half since I have been working with software development and I feel like there are new trends that while I have heard of, I dont have a working knowledge of. A decade ago, when I was starting out and when I met older people in technology, I saw that they held on to what they learned early on and there was a gap in their working knowledge - of things they knew in their early years and things that were current at that time (when I was a young buck). 15 years later, While I think I am not quite there, I do feel this may be the start of something like that. I come 3 tier web application structure world, the world of html, servlets, jsps web/app server, dbs; and while they are still around, lots of new technologies have arrived and it seems overwhelming. heavy use HTML5 & CSS, Rise of the .JS frameworks - almost a new one everyday it seems like, change in the fundamental structure of applications - introduction of specialized server caches, server side JS frameworks and database that are no longer tied to SQL. I think learning everything is not a sustainable idea, it does make sense to know them enough to keep things in perspective, which ultimately brings me to my questions -

* How do you keep up ? * How do you strike a balance between depth of knowledge vs breadth of knowledge ? * How do you view the IT/Technology/Software landscape ?

Thanks for pitching in!