Obsolete? Me thinks not.

Dear Mr. Scoble … thanks for making me feel old …

Robert Scoble wrote a post about obsolete skills, which has spawned an Obsolete Skills wiki. Yeah, assembly language programming made the list pretty quickly. Fine, be that way … just try starting your computer with out me. Yeah, thought so. Even the new-fangled Unified EFI (UEFI) products that I’m working with to slowly put my old product to pasture requires a little assembly language skill. See also security products, performance-optimized drivers, household appliances and anything automotive with electronic timing.

And on a technical note … obsolete skills in a wiki? Come on! You should be archiving obsolete skills on a Gopher site. Now get off my lawn … damn kids.

*ahem* The real issue with defining any skill as “obsolete” is context. Building a fire isn’t obsolete if you don’t live in a country with central heating, or that fire is used to boil the water you want to drink while you wait for the water treatment plant to be completed upstream.

Yeah, some skills have gone the way of reel-to-reel tape recorder … something I have actually used, not because it was the technology of my day but because it was what we had at my college radio station. Learning these older skills brings some good knowledge, like the fundamentals of how new technology work. That time editing videotape on A-B roll makes me a much better at non-linear video editing on a dual-core computer system.

I learn new skills all the time, which is nice when it comes time to pay for the house every month. But that house has horses next to the cars, goats that we have once used to make cheese, and a coop for chickens that lay brown eggs we can cook when we’re not in the mood to microwave a frozen breakfast burrito.

The lesson: Know when you’re out of date, but be careful when you disrespect the old school.