There was a recent discussion in the forums here at SQL Server Central regarding the difficulties presented by the constantly shifting technology landscape. The core question was, how on earth do you master stuff? Especially, how do you master things when they're both new and constantly changing?

Honestly, you don't.

I mean, you can, but it's likely to be a full time thing. Take Azure SQL Data Warehouse, uh, I mean, Azure Synapse. Under the covers, at the core, it's just SQL Server. Yet, it really is so much more. And, as you can see from my little joke (very little) with the name, it's constantly changing. You could take the time & trouble to master it, except, you'll also need to spend a considerable portion of your time learning how to do data loads in order to get the data in correctly. That likely means you're going to have to learn some coding language like PowerShell or Python in order to support it. While you're off learning Python, Synapse is changing, so you're going to playing this constant game of catch up. Also changing will be the data loading tools, your scripting language, the Azure interface, etc. and, oh my, etc..

Now, I'm old. In theory, I'm going to retire in just seven years. Might happen. Might not. I'll worry about it as I get closer. However, I know one thing is true. If I want to keep the job I have, the career I've built, I cannot sit on the knowledge I've currently accumulated. I have to continue to learn, non-stop. I think that's true of many of us who consider ourselves technologists. For so many of us, there are two constants; Everything is changing and the learning is non-stop.