We are frequently reminded of the cyclical nature of technology. All of us working in tech are under constant pressure to look for the next shiny thing. In fact we feel as if our livelihoods depend on it. Often our stakeholders may have an expectation that there’s some new thing on the horizon that will give them a competitive advantage. But ultimately it’s not the shiny new tech that helps you beat your competitor. You succeed by solving problems better and faster than them. Quite frequently that is achieved with boring and unsexy technology. Because of this we often see resurgence of old techniques when the “modern” methods turn out to be over-engineered and unnecessarily complicated. Max Böck just published a nice article about how some of the technology trends from the 90’s era Internet are making a comeback.