From 1999 to 2009

Tomorrow will be the first day of 2009. But I won’t reflect on 2008; instead I’m going to check out how much things have changed (or not) since 1999.

I remember being excited. The dot-com boom was in full swing and most people believed that it was truly a New Economy. A friend and I were feverishly trying to come up with an Internet business idea that would translate into VC millions and IPO billions like what everyone else was doing in Forbes and BusinessWeek. Back then web programming was something of a black art involving Unix, CGI and Perl; even “webmasters” who knew nothing but HTML were making good money.

Today the cost of setting up a web-based business is close to negligible. And come to think of it, even the term “web-based business” sounds a bit funny. If you’re below 70 and setting up a business, a website with a hard-to-miss Buy Now! button is just one more thing to cross off the list, along with “register company” and “print business cards”.

1999 was the year of The Matrix. Its special effects were so ahead of its time, even if it hit the theatres yesterday it wouldn’t look out of place. “Bullet time” has since been incorporated in so many movies that a fighting scene wouldn’t be complete without one.

Dr. Mahathir was still PM. (Seems like a lifetime ago). The events of 1998 were still very fresh, people were confused, and admiration of him had become, well, less widespread. Fast forward a decade and the Mahathir years are increasingly being looked upon with nostalgia, if only for his acerbic wit and the twinkle in his eye when he shoots down those who dare oppose his ideas. Today he’s still a regular source of quotable quotes for the press and his blog has in less than 100 days become one of the highest ranking in terms of traffic.

Speaking of traffic, cars haven’t changed very much though. There has only been incremental evolution in terms of automotive engineering advancements. Proton is still enjoying protection, and Toyotas and Hondas are still way overpriced.

In the meantime, the world has become more chaotic, and I think even Robert Ludlum would be taken aback. Pre-9/11, a 10-year US visa was just a matter of filling a simple form and queuing up for a few hours. Terrorism was an IRA tactic and that was about it. Post-9/11, fear and paranoia is the norm and shows no signs of abating. There have been bombings everywhere – Baghdad, Mumbai, Bali, London.

Let’s hope the worst is over.

As for myself, professionally: from a system integrator who dabbled a bit in VB6, I managed to switch careers and I’m now doing what I love, which is software development. From knowing only how to back up source code on a floppy (or Zip disk) I have come to realize and deeply appreciate the importance of concurrent versioning systems. And from embedding business logic in the UI I now know a thing or two about tiering, separation of concerns, encapsulation and design patterns.

Of course, in ten years, some people manage to build whole business empires, or become CxOs of largish companies, or amass considerable amounts of wealth; but one thing about getting older is that you tend to be more comfortable with your own definition of what constitutes success. (OK I’m justifying here. After more than a decade of working I’m nowhere near becoming a millionaire! Sob!)

Anyway. So what’s next? Let’s see if I still have this blog in 2019 …

31 December 2008 | Uncategorized | Comments