August 22, 2022 at 12:00 am
Comments posted to this topic are about the item When Is Technology Good Enough?
August 22, 2022 at 12:38 am
It's easy to find out when technology is "good enough"... just wait a bit for the next change. The trouble is, it's frequently the prior change that was good enough for the very reason I cite in my signature line below.
I'll leave it at that.
--Jeff Moden
Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.
August 22, 2022 at 7:53 am
I change my car when it wears out, so every 10-15 years. The improvement over 10 years is huge.
My son and I bought a 20 year old Toyota Celica. Fantastic fun, well maintained, drives like new but there is no getting away from the fact that new 20 years ago is not like new today. My Dad has always been a change-every-2-years man. His experience is a step forward , if at all, rather than a leap forward.
Then there's the MacBook Pro. In each of my 3 previous positions I've had a new MacBook PRO.
The 1st one was my first experience with a MacBook. Annoyingly brilliant.
Next generation had that strange toolbar at the top of the keyboard. Slightly faster but not really a big jump forward. In many cases I prefered its predecessor.
MacBook Pro M1. Everything I liked about the 1st Macbook. Incredible performance. Can work all day without the power supply.
Evolution doesn't stop but the speed of evolution varies dramatically.
With mobile phones I am mindful of the Henry Ford quote "If I'd asked what they wanted they would have said faster horses". Until we see the next big thing few of us can imagine it
August 22, 2022 at 1:44 pm
A specific legacy version of SQL Server (ie: 2012) is good enough, if it supports that legacy application for which you havn't changed since 2014. But if you work in an organization which is constantly improving your in-house applications, then no version of SQL Server (not even the latest) will ever be deemed good enough.
"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Instead, seek what they sought." - Matsuo Basho
August 22, 2022 at 2:16 pm
I'm ambivalent on this topic. I like what David Poole said, about buying a car and keeping it for 10 to 15 years vs. upgrading it every other year. I tend to hold onto vehicles for 10 to 15 years. Not because I want to, but the cost of cars have gotten exceedingly high. I'm old enough to remember some of these more expensive cars being as high as what home prices were, back in the day. And you have to pay them off in 7 years?! Really?
Back to your question, Steve, about technology. I work for a place that holds onto all technology for way longer than its expiration date. In fact, so long that at some point that technology (doesn't matter if it's databases or networking) is so long out of support that it becomes targets for hackers. That's taking holding onto old tech way too long. And in the event we do get hacked, there will inevitably be rounds of blaming. (Kudos to the security team who do a great job of preventing hacks.) On the other hand I don't see a need, at least in the industry I work in, to upgrade things like databases, whenever a new version of SQL Server or MySQL comes out. I do love to stay current with the latest version of Visual Studio, as I do enjoy new features and use them. But at the end of the day, I prefer being somewhere in the middle. Probably closer to adopting newer tech, but in most cases not the newest tech.
Kindest Regards, Rod Connect with me on LinkedIn.
August 22, 2022 at 4:52 pm
To be more specific, the "improvements" to TempDB, especially the one that adds TF1117 functionality (grow all files equally) and cannot be disabled even temporarily for TempDB because a bunch of people decided that it is such a "good idea", killed some big stuff that I do because they didn't "improve" the way inserts during "SET IDENTITY INSERT ON", which forces a sort in TempDB even when a sort isn't necessary. It was "fun" to watch each of 8 files in TempDB try to grow to 200GB. I don't know about anyone else but I simply haven't setup TempDB with more than 2TB to support 1-2TB databases.
The "improvement" would have been great if they made it so it could be disabled, like they did on all the other databases.
--Jeff Moden
Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.
August 22, 2022 at 6:22 pm
The car analogy is a good one In general, a 20 (or 30) year old car does what a current one does. Get you from place to place. Most of those older cars have the basics we need/want (AC, 4WD/FWD, power steering, etc.).
Two years ago we had a 2001, 2012, 2011, 2010 cars. Kid wrecked one, so we got a 2020. Then sold that and replaced it with a 2021. I think I've tended to keep some a long time, some replace after 5-6 years.
For laptops and my desktop, I think a 2-3 yr timeframe for replacements for laptops, 3-4 for desktops, or when Glenn Berry bugs me about buying one of his old systems, which are usually only a year or two old.
August 22, 2022 at 11:58 pm
Re: Phones: still using my iPhone4s. I keep dropping it, but it just wont die, and battery still lasts 3 days ... but I only use it so my wife can contact me, it may as well be a dumb phone, only used 1.1GB of data in its entire life.
Re Cars: only ever bought 1 brand new, will never buy a new one again, complete waste of money - max spend on a car is now $20k, a 10 year old 'new' car is all anyone needs. And electric cars wont be useful in Australia until they can travel for 2 weeks in the remote outback without needing to be plugged in or refuelled beyond the few extra fuel cans on the roof rack.
Re: Software: conversely to the above, am frustrated by some of our customers that refuse to move off an 8 year old version we want to retire. But in a general sense, am more frustrated by the drive to add new 'Big' features, rather than perfect what we have.
In closing : yes, we get less excited about new-tech as we get older (I am 49), because we realise its all just more of the same, with a different set of compromises, but no real change. It all seems like "Change for change's sake".
August 23, 2022 at 1:29 am
But in a general sense, am more frustrated by the drive to add new 'Big' features, rather than perfect what we have.
That's one of my biggest frustrations with Microsoft.
In closing : yes, we get less excited about new-tech as we get older (I am 49), because we realise its all just more of the same, with a different set of compromises, but no real change. It all seems like "Change for change's sake".
That one is one of my biggest frustrations, especially with software. A good example of that is the bloody "ribbon bar" in MS Office... they all lead to the same lame menus they had before and they still haven't fixed decades old problems like making "End Down" work correctly when you're trying to "hitch a ride to the bottom" on a column in one other than the one you ultimately want to populate. We won't get into positioning of graphics in Word. 🙁 Can't get into my frustrations in those areas about SQL Server because it would likely be a 30 page article.
My point is that I agree with the "Change for change's sake" notion. It's like their brain are screaming "WELL! WE'VE GOTTA DO SOMETHING!... EVEN IF IT'S WRONG!" And, it frequently is.
It's like back in the '70's when they decided to change the packaging for Ritz crackers. Regular buyers could find them any more and so they launched a month long TV, Radio, Magazine, and Newspaper campaign. The tag line was "We changed the package but it's still the same ol' Ritz on the inside".
I refer to it all as S2D2 (ess-squared dee-squared). I'm pretty sure that most people can figure that one out. 😀
--Jeff Moden
Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.
August 23, 2022 at 10:16 am
Agree totally with the comments made about the updates to Microsoft Office Ribbon bar. Good job I can still remember the keyboard commands to do the same thing Alt e, s, e for example is transpose a paste in Excel.
Dammed if I know how to do it with the mouse
-------------------------------Posting Data Etiquette - Jeff Moden [/url]Smart way to ask a question
There are naive questions, tedious questions, ill-phrased questions, questions put after inadequate self-criticism. But every question is a cry to understand (the world). There is no such thing as a dumb question. ― Carl Sagan
I would never join a club that would allow me as a member - Groucho Marx
August 23, 2022 at 5:01 pm
Perhaps the other thing we should consider is recruitment and retention of staff.
How do you recruit someone to maintain old tech?
I'm in my last 10 years now but, if anything, I am more sensitive to having an obsolete skillset than before. If I was on my last 12 months or post-retirement then maintaining an old system would be a nice little earner.
I am also mindful of small version increments that we say "it's not worth it" then finding, in aggregate, those changes are a really big deal.
I know of a company that was running a system on obsolete but phenomenally reliable hardware and software....until it wasn't. It was absolutely mission critical stuff as well.
The company had outsourced the maintenance of the system to a 3rd party. When push came to shove that 3rd party didn't have the skills to enact a disaster recovery and the skills in the marketplace was practically zero. Imagine having to perform a disaster recovery on SQL Server 4.2 on OS/2 and you have an a feel for the problem.
August 23, 2022 at 9:11 pm
Well, I think it depends on exactly which technology and your priorities. I just turned in my iphone 4 a year ago for a Moto G. The Moto G has had a shattered screen for six months that is not repaired yet. Phones are not a priority since they created cell phones and made my leash to work much shorter.
This spring I finally shut down my last Windows XP machine but will still keep it in storage since it has the last version of the accounting package for my wife's business that she sold nearly ten years ago. Also had to upgrade an Access database that was on it with an intermediate Access version to bring it to Office 2016, and updated my Outlook to that version too.
We still drive a 2003 Buick Park Avenue and a 2010 Ford Pickup that are both doing well, so why pay for a new one?
My personal finance package is from 2014, and I don't plan to upgrade since they went subscription, have made changes I don't like, and haven't improved things that should be improved.
On the other hand, for this winter I plan to replace my wife's laptop with the latest and greatest Asus ROG monster, and will follow up with mine. Then I'll upgrde my SQL Server 2012 with a new version from my old employer.
Rick
Disaster Recovery = Backup ( Backup ( Your Backup ) )
August 24, 2022 at 3:40 am
David, I think that it's possible to hold too tightly to old tech, too. Guess there's problems at either extreme.
Rod
August 24, 2022 at 1:34 pm
How do you recruit someone to maintain old tech?
Not even that, how do you recruit to maintain new tech when all your team is supporters of old tech? I just got laid off a week ago, both my boss and I who were hired to move the old tech to the cloud. Everyone there was 20+ years in the old tech and company. Ruffled a lot of feathers on how the new approach in the cloud SHOULD be versus what they were doing in the data center/legacy platforms. Clearly a big disruption that led them to rethink and pause the cloud shift.
The whole car analogy is a bad one. Cars can still operate fine as time moves on unless something dramatic happens with the highway, process of how we drive, etc. For example, if we went to flying cars and your car has no flight ability. The issue with old tech is the features it lacks over time as well just general support of the tech with newer software, languages, etc. Like with video games. Older games can still work, but running them on new OS causes massive difficulites. Same with the the mobile phone analogy. Apps get upgrades and starts losing support for your flip phone.
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