We have so much pl/sql at our company and it really sucks because the "young" generation of devs must convince the pl/sql guys to switch to some more powerful and newer languages like java.

But not everyone wants to use the new stuff or learn anything new. I mean there are some programmers who really appreciate that there is new stuff. They have no problem learning from the younger generation. But some of them just resist any change in that direction, and thats the much higher amount of devs.

Does anyone of you have such experience? What can i do against that?
Is that some kind of "i am too old for this"-trip?

I’ve been there. I feel you man

Isn't the last PL/SQL version from 2009?

Been there, too. pl/sql may be Turing complete, but for business logic it simply is the wrong tool for the job.

I don't think you can do much. I mean, such a person believes he's right. And additionally he has a million excuses to not change his opinion, the "I'm senior with X years experience, who are you again?" being the obvious one.

In my case I transferred to a different team. Anything else is a career dead end. You'll only learn yesterday's knowledge from such a senior (at best). Additionally, working with bullheads is zero fun. Maybe you can consider that, too.

I've been on both sides. I'm currently on the "old fogey" side of things at my current company. Part of my resistance is probably the same as the folks at your company. You are given tasks 1, 2, and 3 to do. You can do them expertly and quickly using your existing skill set. Why do it differently? There are sometimes very good reasons to use a different technology out newer language to perform those tasks. However, I rarely see those reasons used in discussions. Instead, I hear "language x is modern and elegant. Only losers would still use language a" That argument won't win any friends or any converts to language x even if there are good reasons to use it. It is personally demoralizing for me to not be able to use skills that I worked hard to become an expert at that I know I can use to create value for the customer quickly while at the same time being told that creating a half assed POS in a browser is far superior because PASS, SASS, IASS, etc.

@Reymann
You probably can’t do anything about the situation in a short term. You might try to become a veteran yourself and then gradually start convincing the management. As a new guy, you are nobody.
If the software works, it won’t be rewritten or modernised. There must be a huge problem (performance, quality, competition) for someone to sponsor a big and risky project. And even if there’s a visible issue, the management can be in denial. I’ve seen this happening for years.

Change your job.

@VaderNT Yeah i am currently trying to get more into the devop area, and thinks are much better there. But i still wanna turn them to the other side, you know :(

@matste I am already like a veteran for the "new stuff", thats the reason my boss hired me. The prob is the management is not enforcing a change or giving that clear direction to everyone ...

@broseph Thanks man :)

We have so much COBOL at our company and it really sucks because the "young" generation of devs must convince the COBOL guys to switch to some newer languages like C89.

The description of your situation seemed too familiar... I've worked for the mother company of yours :D

I've switched after three years in the plsql Moloch ;) I have seen things which are hunting me in my nightmares.... ;D

I wish you all the best!

@bvs23bkv33 Jep dinosaurs seems hard to kill ...

@KnutKnutsen Thanks :)

@monkeyboy we've made very different experiences then. I've never heard "only losers use some_old_thing", OTOH many times "some_new_stuff is just syntactic sugar/a fad/just reinvents what some_old_thing can do". Some generic dismissal.

I understand it's frustrating that knowledge becomes outdated. Especially in a field that evolves as quickly as IT. Some take it too far and become mentioned dinosaurs. Using Java 4 (the one without generics) when 8 is true and tested. They shouldn't be in IT.