Not to be too critical, but I feel like this article was a bit naive. Nothing works "optimally" and no-one knows the answers to lots of these questions. IMO its a great thing that people are out there trying new things and sometimes good practices stick around. We need the vanguard to be there so that we explore.
"order for learning to most effectively improve our state of operation"
Things don't move "most effectively" in anything. I guarantee that other engineering disciplines do not react to new tech / innovation in any sort of optimal way. People are driven to work in certain ways by all kinds of things, and mostly has to do with incentives and social reasons.
"But I very rarely see articles looking back at past languages or technological fads and looking at current trends through that lens."
There are historical surveys all over the place, even on this site.
I don't want to attack this article too hard, and the motivation to ask whether or not we are are really learning from our experiences is good, I just feel like people are more flustered by the fact that there aren't magical best practices you can memorize and apply yet, and that most human knowledge comes from experience and intuition.
"order for learning to most effectively improve our state of operation"
Things don't move "most effectively" in anything. I guarantee that other engineering disciplines do not react to new tech / innovation in any sort of optimal way. People are driven to work in certain ways by all kinds of things, and mostly has to do with incentives and social reasons.
"But I very rarely see articles looking back at past languages or technological fads and looking at current trends through that lens."
There are historical surveys all over the place, even on this site.
I don't want to attack this article too hard, and the motivation to ask whether or not we are are really learning from our experiences is good, I just feel like people are more flustered by the fact that there aren't magical best practices you can memorize and apply yet, and that most human knowledge comes from experience and intuition.