Your company has a knowledge debt problem | Hacker News Reader

Your company has a knowledge debt problem

nathanmarz.com

42 pointsnathanmarz6 comments

The author fails to distinguish between a debt (which you incur by spending what you don't have) and a mere lack. I don't think it's appropriate to call it "knowledge debt" when you're merely ignorant of some potentially useful technology.

The actual point of the article is simply this: It's good to know stuff, but hard to learn stuff and tempting just to continue using what you're used to; if you do that, you run the risk of remaining ignorant of something useful. Absolutely correct, of course, but why call that situation "debt"?

The author's drawing an analogy with Ward Cunningham's metaphor of "technical debt", which you incur when you deliberately do something quick-and-dirty and cause yourself pain later on. That really is an instance of debt: when you incur technical debt, you truly are making something worse in the longer run for short-term gain. But (e.g.) writing something with Java and MySQL, which you happen to be familiar with, rather than taking the opportunity to learn a new technology, is not incurring any sort of debt unless the Java/MySQL solution is actually inferior.

It might still be a dumb move for exactly the reasons the author gives. It's just the choice of metaphor I'm objecting to.

I suppose you could think of it as an opportunity cost debt. If you don't take the best opportunities, you'll end up paying for them later (and then some).

It looks like debt because it's measured relative to the world / companies around you, which moves forward through the cutting edge continuously. The more you stay comfortable, the further behind current you get and the more you need to do to pay off that gap.

Doesn't seem like a great analogy to me either, because you can presumably skip learning things and jump right to the cutting edge if you want, evading the middle bits without incurring any wrath from a creditor for doing so.

This is really just replacing one type of "debt" with another. It's true that if I do all my work with one toolset, I'm likely to end up not using the very latest and best tools to solve problems. However, if I regularly use different toolsets, I'm going to end up with a costly cornucopia of applications. For a medium-sized or smaller company, the choice to add another toolset should not be taken lightly.

I think it's easier for smaller companies to make these kinds of changes. In big companies, there are always multiple levels of management that must be consulted to make a decision.

This reminds me of another article I read about "just in time" learning VS "Just in case" learning. The first is the kind of on the job training we all do to get up to speed on projects etc. The second is academic or recreational learning, that is learning without an immediate application in mind.

The author seems to think that one kind of learning is more valuable than the other. This is not the case. All jobs require a certain degree of "just in time" learning and almost all "just in case" learning can be done in a "just in time" manner.

The real question for employers should not be what kind of knowledge does this person have but rather am I willing to pay for this person to learn what they need to to do this job.

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