On the old and the new

"Out with the old, in with the new" - this statement doesn't really work in software. We cherish the old. We like the familiar. We cling to what we know, and label everything else as "not mature" or even just plain "risky".
And we should. The new is often wrong. In the "old days", there were a lot of "new" ways of doing what we now need. Evolution (mutation and natural selection) culled most of these and left us with a golden way of "how it should be done". But this kind of process takes time - so that shiny "new thing" is now the "old and familiar".
However, once in a while we get to hear the big news - "500M users due to an innovative design", "Millions of requests per second" (but using out-of-this world architecture), "Terrabytes of memory available for use" (but re-implementing everything we thought we knew about VMs). While the growth is usually gradual, the change in thinking that enabled these is instantaneous. You either try to migrate to a new database or not. You either try to build your data centers with second grade equipment, or not. You either rewrite stuff from scratch - or fight the same battle everyone else is.
I envy those with both talent and guts to go the distance. I pity those who fail. I glorify those who succeed. And sometimes - I try to push a little on my own little corner. Maybe shake a few old cobbles loose and let some new light shine in
I think a statement that fits the software world much better is "no pain, no gain".