The most useful 3 things that age/experience has taught me personally are:
1. There are unknown unknowns (I don’t know why Donald Rumsfeld got so much flak for saying this)
2. Developing something that gets used is far more rewarding in the long term than using the latest technology or paradigm, or coding for codings sake (It took me over a decade to realize this - it may just be me)
3. In more cases than not it doesn’t matter what the technology, language, or paradigm used to develop a system or product is. It’s more important that the people developing the system are committed to building it (and them choosing that technology often helps)
> There are unknown unknowns (I don’t know why Donald Rumsfeld got so much flak for saying this)
He got flak for what he used it to justify. Out of context of the question to which it responds, the unknown unknowns statement wouldn't have been controversial (similarly with his “you go to war with the Army you have, not the Army you wish you had” offered in regard to a war of choice, not of imminent defense.)
Here's the "unknown unknowns" quote [0] in context. Rumsfeld is responding to a question on whether Iraq had any connections to WMDs. He's justifying the invasion by saying that inspectors aren't allowed in the country, so the US doesn't know if there are WMDs or not.
> Q: Could I follow up, Mr. Secretary, on what you just said, please? In regard to Iraq weapons of mass destruction and terrorists, is there any evidence to indicate that Iraq has attempted to or is willing to supply terrorists with weapons of mass destruction? Because there are reports that there is no evidence of a direct link between Baghdad and some of these terrorist organizations.
> Rumsfeld: Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns -- the ones we don't know we don't know. And if one looks throughout the history of our country and other free countries, it is the latter category that tend to be the difficult ones.
> And so people who have the omniscience that they can say with high certainty that something has not happened or is not being tried, have capabilities that are -- what was the word you used, Pam, earlier?
> Q: Free associate? (laughs)
> Rumsfeld: Yeah. They can -- (chuckles) -- they can do things I can't do. (laughter)
> Q: Excuse me. But is this an unknown unknown?
> Rumsfeld: I'm not --
> Q: Because you said several unknowns, and I'm just wondering if this is an unknown unknown.
Off topic: We gave Rumsfeld grief because most of his unknowns were in fact well known! He just didn’t like the facts on hand and led NATO into an evil disaster because reasons.
1. There are unknown unknowns (I don’t know why Donald Rumsfeld got so much flak for saying this)
2. Developing something that gets used is far more rewarding in the long term than using the latest technology or paradigm, or coding for codings sake (It took me over a decade to realize this - it may just be me)
3. In more cases than not it doesn’t matter what the technology, language, or paradigm used to develop a system or product is. It’s more important that the people developing the system are committed to building it (and them choosing that technology often helps)