Learning Priorities

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Learning Priorities

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Gail Shaw SSC Guru Points: 1004504 More actions · Answer 1

Domagoj Orec (12/19/2008)
I wonder what happens with 50+ year olds in IT, how they cope with learning new things?

My colleague's around that age and he runs rings around me when it comes to learning new technologies.

Gail Shaw
Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server, MVP, M.Sc (Comp Sci)
SQL In The Wild: Discussions on DB performance with occasional diversions into recoverability

We walk in the dark places no others will enter
We stand on the bridge and no one may pass

Steve Jones - SSC Editor SSC Guru Points: 734449 More actions · Answer 2

I have to say that at 40, nearly 20 years in this business, there aren't a lot of "new" things. There are new languages, new syntaxes, and evolutions of how we used to do things, but the core principles of development and administration really haven't changed a lot. I still see lots of basic skills I learned in high school programming, in the early 1980's applying.

You adapt and evolve your skills to the new syntax and interface. The basics still apply.

K. Brian Kelley SSC Guru Points: 114562 More actions · Answer 3

Lynn Pettis (12/19/2008)
We keep learning. I don't want any young'ns showing me up if i can help it.

As Steve indicated, we have the experience to see what's important and what's not. If we apply what we know to new technologies, we do so with an edge over the youngbloods who come in brand new. I remember discussing VMware when it first came out with a mainframe programmer who had spent most of his life in COBOL but was then a DBA on my team. As I started discussing, he started relating to things they had done on the mainframe for *years* and that proved there is "nothing new under the sun" to me when it comes to IT.

K. Brian Kelley
@kbriankelley