I have been in the industry since 1984 and I remember when everything we did was "roll-your-own". My first job was at Naval Intelligence in Washington, D.C. and my first project was to write graphic primitives (what we called driver's back then) for our Calcomp plotter and our HP graphics terminals (slightly smarter than an original VT-100). So, over the years, I have greatly changed my mind about roll-your-own VS pre-built libraries.

I have also gone from Oracle to Adabas to Oracle to SQL Server to Firebird/IBPhoenix and back to SQL Server with a little MySQL thrown in for good measure. I wonder sometimes if that is why I seem a little schizophrenic?

I can remember arguing that C and assembler where the best languages to use because interpreted languages could never be fast enough. Now I enjoy using javascript/jquery/et al.

And of course, I remember thinking a 56K modem was all the speed anyone would need to connect to the internet.

I guess I have learned that as Heraclitus of Ephesus (c.535 BC - 475 BC) taught that the only real constant in life is change.

Jeff