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We gravitate toward familiar tech because it's the comfortable, low-risk route. "Any one who thinks is an agnostic about something, otherwise he must believe that he is possessed of all knowledge."
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In an ideal world, it would be nice to be capable of developing on every platform/language/technology. In practice, this should be tempered by the skill set of developers available. There's no point adopting a technology without the skills to use it.
"If you don't fail at least 90 percent of the time, you're not aiming high enough."
Alan Kay.
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So - an uncomfortable high risk route is beneficial because...?
(I agree we should try to be tech-agnostic using things like repositories, micro-services and interfaces etc. but it is not the case that "language agnostic" is a component of "technology agnostic" and it is not always the case that newer means better)
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But of course! After all all we do is for fun and learning and passing the time...It has nothing to do with earning money, deploying applications or all those real-word bullocks...
Skipper: We'll fix it.
Alex: Fix it? How you gonna fix this?
Skipper: Grit, spit and a whole lotta duct tape.
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The article sounds like a rant directed towards executives and not developers. The projects with serious problems due to a bad tech stack choice are the exception and not the normal case.
By saying "You should be tech-agnostic in every development project", he actually means "Hey, executives, don't make us use a wimpy development technology like PhoneGap when we need something more substantial. Be flexible and do things my way."
And he's diplomatic enough to make his point with a positive-sounding over-generalization that we developers should ignore.
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In my experience, I've found that the wrong tech stack occurs more frequently than it should. The main problem points to non-technical managers (or washed-up engineers) who insist on using some outdated piece of s*** framework, stack or tool that cripples future functionality.
"Computer games don't affect kids; I mean if Pac-Man affected us as kids, we'd all be running around in darkened rooms, munching magic pills and listening to repetitive electronic music."
-- Marcus Brigstocke, British Comedian
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I agree with your first sentence, but have just as often observed developers doing just what the opinion piece suggested. Rather than using outdated stuff, I've found they tend to steer toward cutting edge (with managers often being worse than engineers.) This results in projects being worked on by novices (who are often experts in what they abandoned) that stall when they can't hire anyone to take over (or the "new" think turns out to be a turkey.)
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I think - if you translate the buzzword-manager-speak to normal English - his point is is that cross-platform mobile app frameworks like Cordova seem nice, but don't work out in practise. Probably true, but he doesn't explain why.
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There's so many things that are ridiculous about that article, I can only say that he sure nailed it on the head when he prefaced the title with "Opinion".
Marc
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Close on the heels of Marc Andreessen's anti-colonialism comments about India, a second billionaire Silicon Valley VC has exploded his ego all over the internet. 2*b |~ 2*B
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Quote: Khosla is of course a highly intelligent and thoughtful man
In Hungarian there is a word "szakbarbár" (barbaric professional) - means a professional who went so deep into his profession, that had no opportunity to know anything else about the surrounding world... 
Skipper: We'll fix it.
Alex: Fix it? How you gonna fix this?
Skipper: Grit, spit and a whole lotta duct tape.
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There's an English word which seems to apply here too: asshat.
If the cap fits.
"If you don't fail at least 90 percent of the time, you're not aiming high enough."
Alan Kay.
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Write a poem, write an essay, draw a picture, take a photo. Learn to express ideas, discuss topics, converse with people at a cultural level. Time spent with the arts is never wasted.
"There are two ways of constructing a software design: One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies, and the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies. The first method is far more difficult." - C.A.R. Hoare
Home | LinkedIn | Google+ | Twitter
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I think he's absolutely right.
Teaching Shakespeare is a complete waste of a curious mind. Teaching drama or literature and referencing Shakespeare on the other hand is a good use of time.
Similarly teaching coding is a complete waste of a curious mind. Teaching critical thinking and algorithmic experimentation referencing coding is useful.
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Duncan Edwards Jones wrote: Teaching Shakespeare is a complete waste of a curious mind.
Well I presume someone in the 16th century took the effort to teach Shakespeare. By all accounts his mastery of English was quite good by the time he completed his education, and his plays and poems have been quite well received I believe.
More seriously though, just as Shakespeare is taught as part of a literature course for exactly the reasons you give. Programming should be a separate subject in its own right, but remain elective. The idea of forcing all children to sit through it is the kind of idiotic idea I reserve for the likes of Zuckerburg and politicians.
Critical thinking should permeate all education. If a child hasn't learnt that by the time they've finished education, they haven't really been educated.
"If you don't fail at least 90 percent of the time, you're not aiming high enough."
Alan Kay.
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My intended point (though poorly made) was that teaching anything as a facts-based-mental-recall exercise is a waste of time.
Therefore if you sit people down and make them memorise "Out out, damned spot. What will my hands never be clean" they gain nothing. (The books are available on t'internet these days)
But I totally agree - children should not be made to sit through coding classes - especially given what they are coding today will be (hopefully) obsolete before they reach college.
I'd recommend Ken Robinson's talk(s) on education (www.ted.com)
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Khosla's gripe seems to be not with the goals of a liberal arts education, but its implentation and evolution (or lack thereof, according to him). That being said, perhaps more exposure to the liberal arts would have prevented the author from making this typo. 
Vinod Kosla wrote: Gladwell famously argued that stories were more important that accuracy or validity without even realizing it.
/ravi
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Kent Sharkey wrote: 2*B |~ 2*B→=?
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GPS is an utterly pervasive and wonderful technology, but it’s increasingly not accurate enough for modern demands. Now a team of researchers can make it accurate right down to an inch. You are (exactly) here
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Maybe they re-wrote Einstein's general theory of relativity from scratch, removing the 5-10 feet bugs. 
The sh*t I complain about
It's like there ain't a cloud in the sky and it's raining out - Eminem
~! Firewall !~
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Pointless.
Does it make sense to calculate the location of a moving object with such accuracy?
Does it make sense to calculate the location of an object larger than an inch with such accuracy?
Can you tell me, to the inch, the location of the Taj Mahal? The Pentagon? Mount Rushmore?
If you have misplaced your iPhone, do you need more accuracy than "it's in your couch"?
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It's a boon to marketers, though. When you are walking down an aisle at your local supermarket, the marketer will want to send you a text at the exact moment that you are standing in front of their product, which may only be 3-6 inches wide on the shelf. They will certainly want to know if you stopped and turned and looked at their product. Because then they can send a follow up text asking why you didn't actually purchase said product (they'll know that, too because they will correlate your cash register receipt with the phone that was standing in the checkout line at that moment).
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Why would my wife take my phone to the store? 
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Ha! you've never tried to decide which is the right exit on a roundabout... have you? 
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At speed? 
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