New is Always Better (?)

I have something to confess. I have a problem. I’m not sure if my problem has a name, so I’ll give it one. I call it “Neoprogrammism.” What is it? Well, it’s best explained with an example.

Example 1

I’m now well-versed in Python and Django from several projects, but I’m not as familiar with JavaScript. There’s a new project to generate APIs directly from the database schema that relies entirely on JavaScript? I’ll take it!

Example 2

JavaScript isn’t that familiar to me, but I like CSS. To make my life easier and follow best practices better, I decide on a CSS framework. Now, there are a lot of established frameworks in this area, but I recently read with half my brain in an article that there’s a new slim framework. Better take that one!

What I mean to say is…

Neoprogrammism can affect us all because few of us are immune to the latest “bling.” It’s often tempting to use the latest and “greatest” for a new project. That doesn’t necessarily have to be a bad thing. New projects sometimes do things better or have a chance of receiving support for longer in the future.

However, one must not forget that there might be a reason why “older projects” are still there and being actively developed. There might also be good reasons why these projects work the way they do. Additionally, there has been more time to build an ecosystem around them.

The most important question I ask myself to defeat my Neoprogrammism is whether I only want to use something because it’s new or trendy.