If you search for ways to keep up to date with latest technologies, I’m sure you will find at least couple of articles stating “trying new technologies for each new project” as one of the ways to do it. As appealing and good this sounds to developers, it is not the best possible solution if you have a beginner team and you are selecting to replace the whole stack with a new one. Following are some of the reasons that I believe which can explain why selecting new technology stack that you have no experience with for new solution is not a good idea.
Firstly, the client is paying you to do develop a solution for him or her and not to help you learn something new. If you choose to try a completely new stack that you have no experience with for a new client project than it is obvious that you will spend some time in learning and then apply your knowledge in developing required solution. This could also go side by side as project continues but again no matter how fast you can learn something new, you are still making your client spend some bucks to help you learn.
In addition to this, getting a result that is most efficient or follows best practice all the way is not true when you are learning and doing things at the same time. You will be able to learn the new stack from a book or some online articles but that will only help in completing the job and not in doing the job well. For instance, you can easily find an online post explaining how to make an API call but as a developer, your job does not end there, you should be able to find a way to make it completely efficient. If you can not find the most efficient use of new technology stack then what’s the point of using it?
Lastly, it could be stressful to you and your team. As fun as it can be to learn and use new things, there is also a dark side where you have to find and solve issues in it which can be stressful sometimes. Because you have just started to use it, you mostly rely on your initial understanding and possibly online help to solve any defect that comes in your way. Sometimes, there could be an issue that no has ever experienced and it’s bugging since the last couple of days, everyone is pressuring your complete it, resulting in long hours and overtimes. In addition, if you have a team of a beginner then this could go worse. You will always be struggling with deadlines and at the end, client is not satisfied.
In summary, as listed above it might not be a good idea to try completely new stack for a new project; instead, you should gain some experience in it by doing some POC or side project and then go full force with next client project.
Does this mean one should never try something new in a project? No, this does not mean that you should not use any new technology in a new project, you can, of course, select to replace some part of your technology stack to with something better available out there. Replacing a part is does not hurt that much than replacing the whole stack.For instance, you can choose to move to NoSQL or BigData database instead of SQL database for next project based on your experience with previous projects.
If you have any thoughts or experience on same, please feel free to comment on this post to share it.
harryjoy 