Ages ago, when the world was finally done, the spirit of the river went to the pond and told the animals who were there:

I noticed that every each season, I must cut your water supply for a while, and it causes you some disturbances.

As I love you as much as my fish, and because I want not for you to be hurt, I decided to teach you how to fly: hear me, my dear

The animals reacted to the spirit’s words differently

• the dragon-fly larva absorved all the spirit words, learned how to fly and since that day she was able to fly to and from the pond every time it needed
• the toad, used to reign over the pond without effort, just learned the minimum to be able to jump to the nearest pond
• the shark decided he was doing fine for the last two billion years, and that he did not need to learn anything, but as he did not like to be unconfortable, he swam to the sea
• the crocodile said nothing, and kept looking at the spirit without moving, just waiting for the spirit to be near enough to jump on him and bit his arm

Thousand of years have passed, and still today, the dragon-fly moves happily between ponds every time she needs a change, loving the new airs and places; the toad is still in the pond, reigning lazily over its tadpoles, just jumping to the nearest pond when the water level lows; the shark went far away and never looked back: the pond was just a place to be while things were easy, and he did not need to learn new things, if something had been working for ages, it was no worth of change.

And the crocodile? He’s still there, looking around without moving, just waiting for something to go near enough to jump over it and bit its arm. He did not even understood the concept of change.

So… which kind of developer are you?

In my years I met all those kind of developers: the nervous ones, who flew over new technologies and changes happily; the ones who embraced changes just the minimum needed to survive, while reigning over the new colleagues just because they were there before them; those ones who decided to leave in front of changes, because if something works, don’t change it.

But the ones I fear the most, the ones I want not to work with, the ones I wish I never become like, are the crocodiles: they will stay still, just looking around, surviving because when someone fell near enough, they bit their arm, and still don’t understand the concept of change.

Please, don’t be a crocodile.