[From the Information Technology perspective]
Hi,
This post is somewhat off the subject from my regular posts here. First one inclined towards professionalism and work. That is what you get when you enter a Recursive Vortex: spiraling flows of fluidized thoughts from all the directions. Just trying to give a little justification to title of this blog. :-)
I had this feeling that I am loosing whatever I have learned in the past. All my self taught IT skills are no longer useful and that I am bound to turn into an obsolete member if the IT fraternity in due course of time. If, of course, I do not enhance my skill set to accommodate the rapidly evolving IT world. That was an enlightenment that set me on a course of continuous learning and now I am in a state of learning all the time. What follows are some thoughts on my rationale to this state of continuous learning particularly in context of professional development.
I have been self-teaching all the technologies right from GW BASIC, DOS, etc so forth to this day. I see that the technologies armed by which I made my debut into the IT field are no more relevant in today's IT scene! Now that does not indicate that I am growing old ;-) That only indicates that the IT world is changing quite fast.
Not only in IT but take any other field, automotive for instance. Just twenty years ago we had cars with rudimentary features and inefficient engines. Each of these built by hand. Today we have cars that are feature rich, can spray pico-liter quantity of fuel 1300 times a second (a Maruti's DDIS engine running at 4000 RPM), are safer, and built on mostly automated assembly lines where robots are precise to fraction of a millimeter.
Radical difference indeed.
Back to IT, where sustaining employ-ability is now greatest challenge due solely to the phenomenon of change. From Visual Studio 6.0 we have moved on 4 generations of development platforms now to Visual Studio 2010. We have seen a host of technological concepts changing the way we develop applications (Waterfall to Agile), the way we deliver them (Installable clients to SaaS/Cloud), and the way they look and feel (Desktop/web to Smart Client, Mobile and Touch). All these changes have come within a window as small as a student's graduating years! A full 360 degree change in such a small time frame certainly presents some challenges to the information technologist.
Foremost of all, university curriculum are are getting farther and farther away from the industrial needs. Basically due to the delay in updating the curriculum and red tapes involved in the process. A new comer into the industry is subject to a strange world totally different from the image that they had in mind while they were busy inking down lectures in the classrooms. As soon as they step into the real world, they are subject to a vast amount of choices, new methodologies and loads of stuff to learn that they never heard of. Only a quick learner's pie.
Secondly, it is more and more difficult to see where you have to lead yourself to. The world now offers multiple ways to accomplish a single information technology based solution. For instance, few years ago HTML, Flash and Dream-weaver were the only tools you needed to develop a website. Maybe a couple of more but still masterable. Now you have can choose among, Flash, Silverlight, Joomla, Ruby on Rails, LAMP, Wordpress and many many more ways to accomplish the same.With a number of choices available to accomplish a certain feat, it is inevitable that this choice of technology puts one's foresight to a real test.
Then is the problem related to lifespan of a technology. We have seen cassette players being obsoleted by CD players who are now on the verge of extinction themselves. Thanks for streaming media and compact storage support in almost all media devices. I frequently use online media to search for my favorite music rather than look for a file in my personal collection. Technology has become so short spanned that one has to keep the learning engine pumping in new concepts in all the time and the onus falls upon the learner to decide what to let go in order to make way for the coming ocean of knowledge. What if all your efforts to master a new technology are obsoleted by a single gush of new trends in the ways we exploit technology?A fear factor we all ITians have to learn to overcome.
Ask that to Nokia Symbian operating system developers after Nokia's "Platform on fire" memo and subsequent shift to MS Windows as new platform. What would their future be now?
For a true information technologist, not so dark I would say.
Bill Gates' quote "Change is the only constant" holds true more in this industry, than in general philosophy of life. It is now more necessary than ever that an information technologist be equipped with an appetite to digest the oncoming changes, format their minds and reprogram them for the new paradigms, new technologies and new productivity tools. To survive and sustain their employ-ability in such a changing world, it becomes apparent that a fraction of analytical skills of an information technologist must also be focused on foreseeing the change and preparing to adapt for the same proactively..
In all cases, there will remain a nook or cranny in the IT jungle that will go on providing meals to those who are still unable to digest the ensuing change. Till they develop appetite enough to move on and embrace the new, now changing face of information technology, these nooks and crannies will keep then healthy and alive. Thanks to all those IT administrators who still recommend Novell and DBASE III and help feed many who could never take off with the change. :-)
For those who see it coming, tune in your antennas and prepare to reformat your memories for the new Paradigm, Technological, and Methodological shifts.
Happy changing ;-)
PS:Where is my design patterns book?
This post is somewhat off the subject from my regular posts here. First one inclined towards professionalism and work. That is what you get when you enter a Recursive Vortex: spiraling flows of fluidized thoughts from all the directions. Just trying to give a little justification to title of this blog. :-)
I had this feeling that I am loosing whatever I have learned in the past. All my self taught IT skills are no longer useful and that I am bound to turn into an obsolete member if the IT fraternity in due course of time. If, of course, I do not enhance my skill set to accommodate the rapidly evolving IT world. That was an enlightenment that set me on a course of continuous learning and now I am in a state of learning all the time. What follows are some thoughts on my rationale to this state of continuous learning particularly in context of professional development.
I have been self-teaching all the technologies right from GW BASIC, DOS, etc so forth to this day. I see that the technologies armed by which I made my debut into the IT field are no more relevant in today's IT scene! Now that does not indicate that I am growing old ;-) That only indicates that the IT world is changing quite fast.
Not only in IT but take any other field, automotive for instance. Just twenty years ago we had cars with rudimentary features and inefficient engines. Each of these built by hand. Today we have cars that are feature rich, can spray pico-liter quantity of fuel 1300 times a second (a Maruti's DDIS engine running at 4000 RPM), are safer, and built on mostly automated assembly lines where robots are precise to fraction of a millimeter.
Radical difference indeed.
Back to IT, where sustaining employ-ability is now greatest challenge due solely to the phenomenon of change. From Visual Studio 6.0 we have moved on 4 generations of development platforms now to Visual Studio 2010. We have seen a host of technological concepts changing the way we develop applications (Waterfall to Agile), the way we deliver them (Installable clients to SaaS/Cloud), and the way they look and feel (Desktop/web to Smart Client, Mobile and Touch). All these changes have come within a window as small as a student's graduating years! A full 360 degree change in such a small time frame certainly presents some challenges to the information technologist.
Foremost of all, university curriculum are are getting farther and farther away from the industrial needs. Basically due to the delay in updating the curriculum and red tapes involved in the process. A new comer into the industry is subject to a strange world totally different from the image that they had in mind while they were busy inking down lectures in the classrooms. As soon as they step into the real world, they are subject to a vast amount of choices, new methodologies and loads of stuff to learn that they never heard of. Only a quick learner's pie.
Secondly, it is more and more difficult to see where you have to lead yourself to. The world now offers multiple ways to accomplish a single information technology based solution. For instance, few years ago HTML, Flash and Dream-weaver were the only tools you needed to develop a website. Maybe a couple of more but still masterable. Now you have can choose among, Flash, Silverlight, Joomla, Ruby on Rails, LAMP, Wordpress and many many more ways to accomplish the same.With a number of choices available to accomplish a certain feat, it is inevitable that this choice of technology puts one's foresight to a real test.
Then is the problem related to lifespan of a technology. We have seen cassette players being obsoleted by CD players who are now on the verge of extinction themselves. Thanks for streaming media and compact storage support in almost all media devices. I frequently use online media to search for my favorite music rather than look for a file in my personal collection. Technology has become so short spanned that one has to keep the learning engine pumping in new concepts in all the time and the onus falls upon the learner to decide what to let go in order to make way for the coming ocean of knowledge. What if all your efforts to master a new technology are obsoleted by a single gush of new trends in the ways we exploit technology?A fear factor we all ITians have to learn to overcome.
Ask that to Nokia Symbian operating system developers after Nokia's "Platform on fire" memo and subsequent shift to MS Windows as new platform. What would their future be now?
For a true information technologist, not so dark I would say.
Bill Gates' quote "Change is the only constant" holds true more in this industry, than in general philosophy of life. It is now more necessary than ever that an information technologist be equipped with an appetite to digest the oncoming changes, format their minds and reprogram them for the new paradigms, new technologies and new productivity tools. To survive and sustain their employ-ability in such a changing world, it becomes apparent that a fraction of analytical skills of an information technologist must also be focused on foreseeing the change and preparing to adapt for the same proactively..
In all cases, there will remain a nook or cranny in the IT jungle that will go on providing meals to those who are still unable to digest the ensuing change. Till they develop appetite enough to move on and embrace the new, now changing face of information technology, these nooks and crannies will keep then healthy and alive. Thanks to all those IT administrators who still recommend Novell and DBASE III and help feed many who could never take off with the change. :-)
For those who see it coming, tune in your antennas and prepare to reformat your memories for the new Paradigm, Technological, and Methodological shifts.
Happy changing ;-)
PS:Where is my design patterns book?
