Thoughts On Change

Happy 2023!

Based on my own experiences and observations, humans don’t like being forced to change. We don’t like when the flow of our day to day routines are interrupted or our interactions with each other and/or the outside world changes. There’s comfort in the familiar, the tried and true.

In the IT space there is example after example of user outcry over change; a new UI, or simply new colors. Sometimes the change is so drastic that the user base moves on to something new; the mentality of if I have to change, I might as well CHANGE. Personally, the change that happened from Windows XP to Windows Vista caused me to explore Linux and opened up a whole new world of computing and thinking about computers. Change isn't necessarily bad. Not saying all change is good either; Digg v4 for those who remember.

As developers, there is a contrarian attitude towards anti-change when it comes to software and tooling. We are constantly exploring change to see what it can do. New side projects are created with new languages. New tools, fonts, you name it are installed and we are constantly learning new ways of doing things. At times, we change things for the sake of just changing things. Code is being rewritten just because we don’t like it. And sometimes all that chasing change lands us right back where we started.

While we chase change in our codebases, it’s important to remember that at the end of the day, we’re no different than our users, and want stability and familiarity in the things that govern our day to day lives. If change is inevitable, especially in the rapidly evolving space of technology, it’s important that we offer as much familiarity to our users that we can. Don’t change something for the sake of change. And if possible, let the users slowly opt into the change and help refine the direction.