It seems my life is often to be encircled by a bitter irony that pervades my goals and intolerably toys with my desired outcomes. Sometimes we are required to extend ourselves to the point where we are well and truly outside our comfort zone, I like this, others do not.
I have been working very hard to introduce the Rapid Application Development, NodeJS and MongoDB, stack to my workplace for years. Tragically I've been met with technophobic levels of resistance by technology stack conservationists of the Microsoft fanboy ilk. However, this all changed recently when the last major blockage to disruptive change was removed and my team got the green light to create a proof of concept on Mongo+Node and within months the team has transformed to one that appears to enjoy their work, gets excited by the things they are learning, excited by the performance boosts and look forward to each release as the users gush over the modern tooled interfaces and UX.
To their credit and admirable abilities, the .NET developers addapted quickly to the new technology and are flourishing on the new platform. I am so impressed with how they are embracing the change I for so long thought they would never accept, perhaps that is a prejudice of my own I need to work on!
There is no reason in 2013 that you as the nerd in the room at your workplace can't be the nagging annoying guy pushing for change like I was. It may be slow, but once change starts it is so powerful it is hard for even the greatest and most effective ludite to stop!
However there is a problem in my situation. All is not rosey in this garden of progressive Eden.
Legacy application support.
It turns out I am the only developer capable of supporting several different legacy systems as some of the other staff made redundant were also the lead developers on critical business applications. So as the former .NET developers experience the joys of the new technology stack and the graduates join them in this new and exciting realm. I... I spend all my time working on a ColdFusion application a decade old and a ITSM tool that is also prehistoric.
So be weary my future loving friends for as you push for your workplace to break free from the shakles of the Microsoft .NET universe or overcome their Oracle Java addiction, make sure you don't end up being the last remaining person who can support the legacy applications! Your suffrage under a dark passenger riding you to early burn out is all there is to look forward to if you get stuck working in the legacy zone.
I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemies.
You've been warned, be cautious, but don't give up in the quest to re-shape the IT landscape, it just doesn't have to be so hard anymore... MJB
