Decided to pop over to the Beattie tech lunch thing today. It’s been a minute since I last went. Honestly, sometimes these things feel like a chore, but I figured I should get out, see what folks are buzzing about.
So, I trekked downtown to that little cafe we usually end up at. Place hasn’t changed much. Grabbed a coffee and found a spot. A few familiar faces, some new ones too. Always a mix. It’s less formal, which is good. No corporate nonsense, just people talking shop.
What folks were chewing on (besides sandwiches)
The usual stuff came up. Someone, I think it was Dave, started talking about the latest framework craze. You know how it is, every six months there’s a new ‘game changer’. Honestly, I tune most of it out. Remember framework X from five years ago? Yeah, neither does anyone else. It’s mostly noise until something actually sticks around and proves itself useful, not just shiny.
Then conversation drifted over to project management tools. Oh boy. Everyone’s got their favorite, everyone thinks the others are trash. We talked about:
- That one super complex tool nobody knows how to use properly.
- The minimalist one that’s too simple for big projects.
- Good old spreadsheets (yep, still kicking).
It just reminds me of that gig I had back in the day. They switched PM tools three times in one year. Total chaos. Nobody knew where tasks were, deadlines got missed constantly. It wasn’t the tools, it was the process, or lack thereof. But try telling management that.
Cloud costs, again
And of course, someone brought up cloud bills. Seems like everyone’s getting squeezed. We were paying peanuts for hosting years ago, running stuff on bare metal in a dusty server room. Now it’s all fancy cloud services, supposed to be cheaper, easier. Easier, maybe. Cheaper? Not from what I hear. People get locked in, costs creep up. You gotta watch that stuff like a hawk.
It was interesting hearing from a couple of the younger folks, fresh out of school. Their perspective is different. They grew up with this stuff. For them, cloud-native is just… normal. Makes me feel a bit old sometimes, remembering dial-up sounds.
Anyway, finished my coffee, chatted a bit more, then headed back. It wasn’t earth-shattering, but it’s good to step outside the usual bubble. Hear what real people are dealing with, not just what the marketing hype tells you. Worth doing once in a while, I guess. Clears the head a bit.
