timrobinson33

tl;dr

For me I will always try to seek out best practice as an inspiration - to find out what the most knowledgeable people in this field do.

But if I can't understand why I should do that instead of something else I've thought of, then I'll do it my way thank you.

As it happens I've recently upgraded a 2 year old project with both node and C#

It was open much the same in both. If you're happy using outdated and unsupported components with security issues AND you can get hold of the right version of the dev tools and plugins AND your hiding environment still supports the old platform, you can maintain the old version with minimal change. But should any professional developer do this?

I'm a developer (age 50+) rather than a data scientist and I've been lucky enough to enjoy all my jobs.

Partly I put this down to working at small companies where you have the autonomy to get things done without too much bureaucracy. However if I was put in a situation where I was working in a large organization and felt the job wasn't making the most of my talent, I would do 2 things:

(a) take my best guess of what I could do that was in my power that would have the greatest impact on the bottom line, and spend as much time as possible doing that (this might not have much relation to my job description)

(b) go as far up the management chain as necessary to try and get someone to understand what I was doing and why.

This maybe a naive and optimistic approach but I'd like to think that after you've tried this with a few different employers you'd find somewhere you were properly appreciated.