“modern” is rubbish

Some terms irk me whenever I read them and one of them is “modern”. I try to avoid it like the plague, which is counter to all the marketing announcements you read out there:

• “Product X uses modern JavaScript features”
• “7 modern CSS tricks you can’t live without”
• “The modern productivity tool to get your engineers to burn out and loving it”
• “342 modern templates to make your web app stand out”

Modern does not mean much. And it is not a sign of quality. All it says it that something is created according to a current trend or fashion and doesn’t do what has been done earlier. That doesn’t mean it is better, it just means that it does things differently.

Modern, like any fashion, is fleeting and doesn’t stand the test of time. You could do a search and find thousands of articles touting “modern ways” of doing things that now are dangerous, counter-productive or even unnecessary.

In order to see if a “modern” solution makes sense to apply, you need to check its publication date. And even then “modern” may also mean “trying to simulate what other solutions do” or “not quite ready for production yet”.

So here is my proposal. Every time we use “modern”, which implies “better than the old”, we can use “current” and the date shows its worth.

And this is why I don’t work in marketing.