Stuck In My Ways

I realized today that when it comes to programming, I’m a bit like a stick in the mud.

I remember when I first made the jump up to HTML4.01 from whatever cock eyed layout we were using back then. Then came learning CSS and I struggled but adapted.

I quickly forgot all the Perl I knew as soon as I found PHP. Then I just stopped.

I’m great when it comes to PHP, MySQL, HTML, and Javascript – it’s the new stuff that I’ve been reluctant to learn.

Give me a web server and the first thing I do is install cPanel and webalizer – even though they’re both very outdated. Even the tools I use are a bit outdated – opting for editplus and wsftp still.

The world is changing, people are using Ruby and postgresql now. Xhtml and Jquery have replaced html and regular old javascript. But I haven’t updated my ways.

To be honest, I just haven’t had the time. I still get to choose the structure of any site I work on, and it’s just way more productive for me to keep going LAMP than to learn something else.

What about you? What made you finally learn and use a new technology? Did you do it on your own or did you do it as part of your job? What are the trade offs of productivity vs learning a new language?

provigil modafinil buy online uk About Ryan Jones

Ryan Jones is an SEO from Detroit. By day he works as a manager of SEO & Analytics at SapientNitro where his team performs SEO for Fortune500 clients. By night he's either playing hockey or attempting to take over the world with his own websites - which he would have already succeeded in doing had it not been for those meddling kids and their dog. The views expressed here have not been paid for and belong only to Ryan, not any of his employers or clients. Follow Ryan on Twitter at: @RyanJones, add him on Google+ or visit his personal website: www.RyanMJones.com