After a while you have most certainly run into what I consider one of the most evil phrases to be uttered in development and possibly the business world.
When you asked why a person, a product owner, project manager, lead dev, etc why they did or want to do something a particular way, you get the dreaded response, 'well thats the way we always have done it.'
More often then not, when this phrase is uttered, it is the portent of doom, a herald of destruction and despair in the coming days and months that should send cold shivers down your spine and wondering if the corporate network team blocks monster.com at work.
Why you may ask? If you do, you have never been on the business end of this phrase.
Mind you I am not talking about when someone refer's to a group management decision that your were using this API with the product, nor a set of development standards a company implements. If this were so, this precise phrase would not have been used.
When you hear 'well this is the way we have always done it' or close cousins of it, you are in a situation of arrogance and or ignorance. Not sure which is worse. Not only this the person who uttered this is completely uninterested in input on how or why it could be done differently. Either an uncooperative customer is scared to death of changing things for his userbase thus causing an extra support call or two, or the development leadership has gone stagnant and apathetic. Unwilling to educate themselves on a better way either due to fear or arrogance that they know better.
The point is, if the past 20 years have taught us anything, it is that technology changes, FAST. Faster then anyone would have guessed. Imagine, 1990, just 20 years ago, the internet to most people was a quirky software called prodigy and the first versions of AOL. It was cute, you could post on bulletin boards, email was just catching on to the masses. 10 years ago, dial up was still the major mode of internet access. Computers doubled in power almost every six months between 1996 and 2004, and continues to improve in new and even terrifying ways.
Programming, once the exclusive domain of Uber geeks that make the modern programmers of today look dumb, is now generally accessible and to a degree doable by the masses.
There are a lot more people doing what we do, and with that comes ideas, new techniques, things we never thought of before. A lot of it is shit, pure and total. But with this mass, comes the diamonds in the rough, good ideas that have changed the industry forever.
We have the masses now able to even write their own video games with relative ease with the use of the XNA api for windows. It has taken most of the complicated and cryptic programming at the system level almost out of the picture.
My whole point is, in the 21st century, it is our duty as IT Professionals to keep an open mind in every situation. Be willing to entertain an idea by even a junior programmer. Sure it may be the most retarded idea that you have ever heard in you life, like the guy wants to recreate and modernize the ATARI bombshell E.T. Sure you could ignore the guy, even berate him, make him feel like a douche.
But.....
If you take the time and discuss the options with him, use the time as educational for him....who knows, between you two you could come up with the next blockbuster game.
The same is true in business. You business guys, listen to the ideas your IT folks have to offer. You don't have to accept them all, but just because your department lives and dies on manual spreadsheets and always has, doesn't mean that it should.
IT folks, just because you can do silverlight and flash like crazy doesn't mean that it is the best thing for your companies Peoplesoft website.
Listen, talk, learn. Don't be afraid to be wrong. I and almost every other programmer, server jockey, PM or engineer will guarantee you this one simple truth. You will learn more from 10 minutes of fixing a mistake then a month doing the same safe things day in and day out.
People are smarter then they have ever been in history. Innovations are flying at us at an unprecedented rate. The ability to listen, distill and refine those ideas into usable, efficent, elegant technology is what separates a good programmer from a great programmer.
-JP
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