> I see people as young as 25 being set in there ways as well when it comes to the latest hipster trends

I once watched a fistfight almost break out in the office over threads vs. event loops. Both engineers were in their mid 20's (as I was, at the time).

From my limited experience, pig headedness seems to be a personality trait - not something intrinsically age related.

Totally true, I sit at my desk at 7am work till 6pm. The kids come in at 11am and do oh so much over time when working till 7pm. And don't get me started about their relationship problems. And this happy hour is the worst social thing ever. I work in London and there are a lot of people here who don't drink alcohol because of religious reasons or it's not a big part of their culture. Happy hour is only social for people who like to get drunk. No problem with that but a company with a drinking culture will never be diverse and will therefor suffer creatively. I once managed a super multi cultural team (9 nationalities and 5 different religions). We socialised by going to a museum or a historical walk through London. That said, I see a lot of young people who can only can do small talk after a couple of drinks. Which is a shame because it shows when new people join the team.

I don't think that many people would consider 7AM to 6PM a reasonable expectation of work unless you're in the game development industry (and even then not reasonable, just expected).

I get that it might be amusing for you when people complain about an overtime that's three hours less than your total workday, but it really is quite unnatural for someone to work for that long. Spending 70% of your waking hours at work is not something to be proud of.

The rest is quite good to hear as an anecdote, however. It's great to hear about teams that socialize in a way that doesn't involve beer, pingpong, or partying. Strange sort of frat culture that we live in.

> I sit at my desk at 7am work till 6pm. The kids come in at 11am and do oh so much over time when working till 7pm.

Why are you working 11-hour days when your colleagues are working 8-hour days?

Efficiency: I do my thinking/coding/building/writing (not writing emails) in the morning before anyone comes in and can interrupt me. I plan all meetings (which I don't consider proper work) in the afternoons. In short: work first, chatting and socialising afterwards. Some people do like to do it the other way around, which I totally understand and respect. I'm more of a morning person. TDLR; My first 8 hours I start with creating value and at the end of the day I a put in a few extra hours (not always) to socialise ;-)

At my office, we play darts and drink beer for the last hour and a half of every Friday. The majority of the time everyone is there and we spend a lot of time chatting while we play. It's fun and I really think it keeps everyone friendly, it's that much easier to remember the other person is a real person when you disagree.

Sometime people go out to a bar or something afterwards. I may feel like I'm missing out but it never feels like something I "should" be doing.

> Turns out the other party arguing in favor of Vue had actually never even used React before.

It's entirely possible to do your research and evaluate a framework, language, or tool without having to use it, just like I don't have to go out and shoot some smack to know that heroin is probably not for me. Being able to evaluate what your needs and wants for a tool are, without having to write a To Do list is a useful skill.

You're comparing a short experiment with no side effects to getting possibly addicted for life though... Sure, you could research some tech from the books and references, but that's never the same as having an experimental, hands-on experience. Mostly because people almost never have the exact same use case as you, so you may realise what's missing in a few minutes of experimenting - but nobody wrote about it before, because it wasn't relevant for them.

Research may be enough. But research + trying a simple prototype is always better.