Do you use bash? How do you redirect both stdout and stderr to a file?
command > file 2>&1
or
command &> file
?
Do you ware sweaters or T-shirts? How do you take them off?
Reaching behind your shoulder to grab the back of the collar and pull it over your head
or
Crossing your arms in front of you to grab the bottom hem and pull it inside-out and up
?
If you answered yes to the above questions but are aware of only one of the alternatives, you suffer from what I call "version stagnation".
Version stagnation happens when, as you pursue a piece of knowledge or a technique, you get to a place you feel pretty comfortable with what you have learned, and simply stopped learning any further for the lack of meaningful returns from such efforts.
In a chat with Brian and Brian on Monday, I mentioned that my Ant skill seems to have frozen at the Ant 1.4 level. Ant 1.4 was the last version of Ant in use when I did a lot of Ant build file development. I did read the release notes for later versions of Ant and am familiar with the new features they introduced. I just haven't used those features extensively.
A lot of Python programmers (me included) are not aware of the so-called new style classes. Sure we've heard of the name, and maybe even read an article or two. But the novelty soon worn off, and we revert back to using whatever we are most familiar with.
The reason for this entry is this Tim Bray post, which references this piece "On PHP". They are talking about the apparent PHP 4 vs. PHP 5 war and the looming Ruby 1 vs. Ruby 2 war. However the concept applies to a broader family of things.
I have written about this 1074 days ago. See this post. I thought it was a good thing then. I still see it as a good thing now.
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