Another great person said something like: sometimes 5 years of experience is just 1 year repeated five times.
I'd guess, less than 1% of engineers in the industry have an opportunity to learn something drastically new at least once a year. Most are doing the same in terms of engineering and just occasionally learn new (not better) tools (that's the only thing that pops in my mind in response to your observation about art moving forward).
On the other hand, considering your 25 yrs of experience, I'd guess just you understanding networking or compilation/linking process will make you look like a magician to 99% of SW engineers outside of your bubble.
I think 99% of what I learn is temporary intracacies of how closed source codebases work lol!
I am doing some deeper dives on reusable knowledge though now. On my list is learn etcd (at a code level) for some reason I am drawn to it. It feels like a microcosm of what bigger complex systems like Kubernetes would be like.
I'd guess, less than 1% of engineers in the industry have an opportunity to learn something drastically new at least once a year. Most are doing the same in terms of engineering and just occasionally learn new (not better) tools (that's the only thing that pops in my mind in response to your observation about art moving forward).
On the other hand, considering your 25 yrs of experience, I'd guess just you understanding networking or compilation/linking process will make you look like a magician to 99% of SW engineers outside of your bubble.