Yup, it has happen to me too. I have around 20 years in software development.
Around 9 years ago...
Me: We can abstract most of that data access with a simple table oriented orm. Not all of it, but a good 80%.
Younger Developer: Nope, That is what record sets are for, it is right here in the Microsoft docs (pointing to the ado api)
...
5 years later, he had moved to a different company, and I received a phone call from him: Just called to say that now I understand what you wanted and how it is simpler.
Me: Then I failed to communicate properly. What could I have say that would have make you give it a chance?
Him: Nothing, I needed to learn it the hard way.
Experience teach.
A few months ago, working with very young dev. team.
Tech lead (late 20s): We need to do all using TDD, if it is not TDD we don't touch it.
Me: Agree, but TDD is one of several tools to DDD; the developer needs to understand what its building, not just that all checks are in green.
Tech Lead: The devs only need the proper test.
Now they drop the core calculations from the project because they couldn't understand them by just looking at the tests, I got task with that, and a salary increase. And some how the tech lead think it is unfair because he "gets" Git and Resharper much better than me.
Your first younger developer sounds awesome. I've worked with people (some older, some younger) that refused to learn from their mistakes.
All developers make mistakes -- "I built this because I was worried about X but I should have been worried about Y." The problem is making the same mistakes over and over.
Respectfully, I have to disagree with your assessment that age is the contributing factor here. I'd argue that pragmatism is what you're seeing.
Pragmatism might correlate with experience, and experience is only gained with time (thus age), but I'd be careful about jumping to that conclusion. There's nothing beyond assumption (this article included) that says younger people are always, or even usually, less pragmatic.
[Edit: That said your tech lead is an idiot if he thinks he should be paid more for a better understanding of technologies tangential to his core goal while he has a weaker understanding of the goal itself.]
Respectfully I submit that we might not be in a big disagreement here.
Pragmatism is a very high contributing facts. My personal experience has not show me IF pragmatism is better. Instead experience has show me WHAT is worth to be pragmatic about.
My observation is that experience leads to emotional maturity, which leads to better pragmatic choices. It is the fear to make mistakes, hence the industry coined "Fail fast". It is the ego boost of "I just learned this cool technology", as opposed to "If this is so cool, hasn't been invented before? How did it look like?" (Another post showed an example with MVC). It is the "I own the world" feeling that we all have as young adults. And there are some "bad" apples in the VC culture that can exploit that.
[And I don't think the tech lead is an idiot, he is where I was 18 years ago]
> Respectfully I submit that we might not be in a big disagreement here.
I like it when that happens. :-)
> And I don't think the tech lead is an idiot, he is where I was 18 years ago
I shouldn't have phrased it that way. The idea that you're more valuable than someone who can solve a core business problem when you can't is idiotic. He himself is probably not an idiot - we've all let our emotions get the better of us.
Around 9 years ago...
Me: We can abstract most of that data access with a simple table oriented orm. Not all of it, but a good 80%.
Younger Developer: Nope, That is what record sets are for, it is right here in the Microsoft docs (pointing to the ado api)
...
5 years later, he had moved to a different company, and I received a phone call from him: Just called to say that now I understand what you wanted and how it is simpler.
Me: Then I failed to communicate properly. What could I have say that would have make you give it a chance?
Him: Nothing, I needed to learn it the hard way.
Experience teach.
A few months ago, working with very young dev. team.
Tech lead (late 20s): We need to do all using TDD, if it is not TDD we don't touch it.
Me: Agree, but TDD is one of several tools to DDD; the developer needs to understand what its building, not just that all checks are in green.
Tech Lead: The devs only need the proper test.
Now they drop the core calculations from the project because they couldn't understand them by just looking at the tests, I got task with that, and a salary increase. And some how the tech lead think it is unfair because he "gets" Git and Resharper much better than me.
Aaawww, the luxury of being young.