- Tags:: 🗞️Articles , My management principles, values, and practices, Boring technology
- Author:: Dan McKinley (“General purpose web person” at S&P, Etsy, Stripe…)
- Link:: Dan McKinley :: Choose Boring Technology (mcfunley.com)
- Source date:: 2015-03-30
- Finished date:: 2017-01-01
The mythical essay that gave rise to the Boring technology term. The main idea is pretty clear:
When choosing technology, you have both known unknowns and unknown unknowns (…) Both sets are typically non-empty, even for tech that’s existed for decades. But for shiny new technology the magnitude of unknown unknowns is significantly larger.
And you should think long term:
It is basically always the case that the long-term costs of keeping a system working reliably vastly exceed any inconveniences you encounter while building it. Mature and productive developers understand this.
Why do you want to have more free? To contemplate bigger questions.