I have two dogs that are equally goofy, but couldn’t be more unique in how they approach things that are new unknown. The first – a large, scary looking German Shepherd Dog – is exceptionally wary of the unknown. The smaller of the two is exceptionally curious and is aggressive in her exploration of the unknown. Surprisingly, both approaches seem to have propensity for disaster! Observing how each of them approach new things had me thinking about I approach new things as well.
In a fast moving (relatively) young profession like software engineering it is pretty easy to see how fear of the unknown can be a liability. New technologies are constantly, reducing development costs, down time, usability. If you have an aversion to unknown, new technologies terrible things could happen to you -things like using IBM ClearCase in 2021.
The other end of the spectrum has its own issues however. The “hot new thing” isn’t always right. Technologies come and go and jumping right into whatever is new can cause just as much extra work as 20 year old tools. Not having a healthy fear of the unknown might make you do something crazy, like build your entire back end using Scala and Twirl.
These attitudes can be summed up as “I’m afraid of this because I don’t know what it is” and “Why would I be afraid of this? I don’t even know what this is. Each attitude has its own benefits and pitfalls. Seeing my dogs approach the unknown so differently was a fun reminder not to get lost too much in on mentality or the other.
