This article landed in my inbox the other day. I was intrigued enough by the title that I seized the opportunity and re-purchased my Medium subscription.

I'm glad I did. The author articulated a sentiment I've been grappling with for some time now. Plus, he had some quotable one liners:

• A generation of developers who can assemble code like IKEA furniture but can't craft it.
• "Stay Relevant or Die" is a lie.
• Mastery beats novelty every time.
• Build libraries, not apps.
• Depth defies disruption.

Maybe this is confirmation bias and this author happens to be saying what I want to hear, but his logic makes sense to me. It's the reason that, when faced with the choice between tackling Next.js, a React framework, or diving into deep JavaScript concepts, I went for the latter.

It just didn't make sense for me to try to learn one more new thing rather than striving for a deeper understanding of what I think I already know.

Don't get me wrong, I would love to become more familiar with Next.js. The idea of building even faster sites using a tool that provides more structure for React and has optimization built into it's foundation seems really, really cool. But I'm trying to accept that, as exciting as it is to pursue the shiny new things, it's the fundamentals that will get me to where I'm trying to go. Which is to technical enlightenment. Or like, becoming one with my machine or something. Unclear.