I'm an old developer, but I talk about the latest and greatest technologies three times a week on my podcast, .NET Rocks! I also speak at software development conferences around the world. Needless to say, my brain is focused on the new and shiny. However, I have lived through the same history of .NET that you have.

More and more, I'm realizing that my experience of having come through this history is a valuable thing to those developers struggling with maintaining an early .NET code base and/or those trying to move a code base forward with a new set of technologies.

If I am describing your situation, I'm not surprised. There are several factors that are NOT helping you in your day-to-day activities.

Information on the web tends to favor the most popular languages and tools. If you're looking for a sample of how to do reflection in .NET 2.0, for example, it will take you time to wade through all of the more recent content.

This theme extends to places like StackOverflow and Pluralsight where content for older technologies tends to go away after a while - or at least can be very hard to find.

Another way this built-in bias for the new and shiny manifests itself is in the conference circuit. You won't be able to find people speaking about older technologies because of the limited audience.

If you are lucky enough to find people who remember the "old stuff" there's a good chance that they will either have an attitude about your clinging to the past, or worse, they are constantly trying to get you to rewrite it from scratch.

Let's face it, it's very hard to care and feed for ancient code unless you can find those special people who carry the knowledge and won't berate you or constantly try to sell you something.

That's why I'm writing this post. I'm that guy. Talk to me. carl@appvnext.com

Carl Franklin

Carl Franklin has been a key leader in the Microsoft developer community since the very early days when he wrote for Visual Basic Programmers Journal. He authored the Q&A column of that magazine as well as many feature articles for VBPJ and other magazines. He has authored two books for John Wiley & Sons on sockets programming in VB, and in 1994 he helped create the very first web site for VB developers, Carl & Gary's VB Home Page.

Carl is a Microsoft MVP for Developer Technologies, and co-host of .NET Rocks!, one of the longest running podcasts ever (2002). Carl is also an accomplished musician and audio/video producer. He started Pwop Studios in 1999 as a record label for his first album, a collaboration with his brother Jay: Strange Communication. Franklin Brothers released Lifeboat To Nowhere in 2011, which has met with rave reviews. In 2013, Carl released his first solo album, Been a While, which features a tune with John Scofield on guitar, as well as an incredible group of musicians local to New London, CT.

Pwop Studios is a full-service audio and video post production studio in New London, CT, where Carl records and produces the podcasts as well as music and video projects - both for himself, Franklin Brothers Band, and the public.