lateral thinking with withered php

 If you were ever a fan of Nintendo, you might have heard of 枯れた技術の水平思考, "Lateral Thinking of Withered Technology" (sometimes given as "Seasoned" instead of "Withered") - Yokoi Gunpei's philosophy of steering clear of the "state of the art" but looking to what can be mass produced cheaply. Here is a great look at how he put it into practice ...

I think there are some parallel lessons for side projects here... when I hear about Pieter Levels who famously makes millions with clever and useful services written in PHP and jQuery, I am reminded that some side projects lean into learning the new hotness (in part because hiring teams might prefer less bespoke code and more following of the latest in the industry) but some projects might benefit from fewer industry dependencies and business relationships to maintain - and that an idea that brings value to customers can be substrate independent.