pottereric

Cool animations. Does anyone know how they made those animations? Or did they do it with vanilla JS/CSS/HTML?

It is a problem I've seen in the real world.

For example, I've seen a project where upper management tasked a team of developers with writing software and didn't give the team specific direction nor did they communicate clear goals for the software. The team asked for more details, and the management told them to "do it agile". The team wrote good software, but they solved the wrong problem.

> This author starts with the implicit premise that change is bad and all conclusions are the result of that.

How did you come to that conclusion? The theme of what I was saying is that projects to be given direction from the stakeholders. I never said anything to suggest that the direction couldn't change.

Forgive my ignorance. What do Rust and Go call their data structures that are analogous to classes?

I agree with you in that I don't agree with the author. I felt that the strongest point of the paper was that it was critical of something that is assumed to be a good thing. That value was that it challenged one of my assumptions that I had never questioned.

Actually, I was talking about developers. In my experience working on projects that needed FDA part 11 compliance, it can be incredibly helpful to have developers that know how to write software that meets to compliance rules from process, validation, and auditability standpoints. I presume the same is true for SOX or HIPPA.

The other factor to consider here is that not all specialists are focused on a technology. Some specialists focus on a process or a business domain. If a startup is working on financial software, finding someone that has a deep knowledge of finance software might be incredibly valuable. This could be very true if your software needs to meet regulatory requirements like Sarbanes Oxley.

As someone that specialized in Palm OS programming for a few years, I concur that there is a risk in picking the wrong specialty. But I did learn a lot in my days as a Palm OS dev. I earned the right to design and implement some really interesting solutions. I got to solve hard problems. I wouldn't have had those chances if I hadn't proven myself to be very good at what I was doing. On the other hand, my vast knowledge of the API of an obsolete OS isn't helping me much these days. I actually keep a copy of one of my Palm OS books as a reminder to never get to tied to one technology.

Agreed. The ruby expert will probably also be proficient in HTML, JavaScript, and CSS. You need a range of skills to be an expert in something.

It's true that a neurologist wouldn't work on your knee, but to become a neurologist, you would have to study the knee in medical school. Even specialists need to have a proficient knowledge in other areas.

There are many interesting ways that the Dreyfus Model of Skill Acquisition could be applied to the ideas in the blog post. There should be a few areas where you are an expert, a handful of things you should know at a proficient level, many things you should know at a competent level. You should be expanding the number of things in which you are an advanced beginner.

I also like what you said about your knowledge of music was useful to your programming skills. Being well-rounded individuals can make us better specialists.

I agree that being a specialist is where the money is. What I was trying to show in the blog post was that the only way become a well-paid specialist is to improve your skills in the surrounding technologies. I doubt there are many developers making tons of money because they know Ruby really well. If there are making good money as a specialist, it is because the know a lot about a framework (probably rails), a communication protocol (HTTP), a design language (CSS), a plugin ecosystem (gems), and an editor. If you want to be a great specialist, you have to know the surrounding technologies as well.

Great points. One of the things that I tried to point out is that the breadth of your skills specifically supports your specialty. A company should appreciate your breadth of skills because it makes you better at your specialty.

That is the exact concepts I was going for. I had never heard that terminology until I read your link. Thanks for the information. I still like the concept of a topo map because I believe that the skills nearest your specialty or more important than those that are further away. A T just indicates that you have a specialty and the your have broad knowledge.

Good point. It helps to be well-rounded in general, not just in technology.

To be fair, if you work for Netflix, entertainment is part of your business domain. One of the things the article highlights is the importance of knowing the business domain for your customers/clients.

What are they protesting?

I love this. I've felt for awhile that as an industry we should experiment with specialized forms of IO for specific tasks. I've protoyped some devices for rating tracks in iTunes (http://vimeo.com/24298670) and using a joystick to control move through code with a debugger. The keyboard, mouse, and touch screen are great for general purpose IO, but specific tasks can be preformed more efficiently with customized IO devices.