There is a concept in sociology and evolutionary sciences for that obsession with constantly improving known as the Red Queen principle, which is the amount of energy it takes to maintain our social status (from Alice in Wonderland’s Red Queen, who says that “it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place”). In programming, this is represented by the constant background learning required just to maintain an up-to-date knowledge of the field. [ TechCrunch ]