Should today’s developers be more or less specialized?
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ITPro Today[^]:
New technologies affect the skill mix needed to produce apps, but not everyone agrees on the impact.
Yes
Or I suppose I could have gone with the universal answer, "It depends"
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ITPro Today[^]:
New technologies affect the skill mix needed to produce apps, but not everyone agrees on the impact.
Yes
Or I suppose I could have gone with the universal answer, "It depends"
Specialization is the hallmark of advanced economies. Those who expect employees to be jacks-of-all-trades because they want interchangeable worker bees or because "it's good for them" run a serious risk of making them masters of none. It's one reason I think that DevOps, to the extent that I understand its intent and how it's practiced, is seriously misguided.
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The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing. -
Specialization is the hallmark of advanced economies. Those who expect employees to be jacks-of-all-trades because they want interchangeable worker bees or because "it's good for them" run a serious risk of making them masters of none. It's one reason I think that DevOps, to the extent that I understand its intent and how it's practiced, is seriously misguided.
Robust Services Core | Software Techniques for Lemmings | Articles
The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.I agree almost entirely, but I do think there's also a use for jacks-of-all-trades to view the big picture and how all the moving parts interact. Plus, they can be shoved in as needed when something comes up.
TTFN - Kent
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I agree almost entirely, but I do think there's also a use for jacks-of-all-trades to view the big picture and how all the moving parts interact. Plus, they can be shoved in as needed when something comes up.
TTFN - Kent
I gravitate to that. I see this inverted though. The "cogs in the machine" perspective favors specialists over generalists. When your cogs are labelled very specifically to job function it's more akin to knowing the size/gearing of the cog and so being able to order up a new one. Sure, folks may like to think they just have everyone do everything but the reality is that everyone cannot and everyone does not have any desire to. The labels are never the reality. I would also tend toward thinking specialists in tech are just always going to be hobbled a little. If no man is an island, no tech fails to be part of a very large contiguous landmass. A bit of knowledge of all its contours serving to make it far more navigable than the best river guide on the best of its rivers. It takes all kinds though and while I think of myself as a generalist, I think some of my best output has come from working with people who may be better termed specialists.
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I agree almost entirely, but I do think there's also a use for jacks-of-all-trades to view the big picture and how all the moving parts interact. Plus, they can be shoved in as needed when something comes up.
TTFN - Kent
That's what we got interfaces for. 'Interfaces' is here used as a general term, not a programming language mechanism. You can make car tires without knowing how every gear inside the car engine works, and nobody needs to know both tire making and car engine making to 'view the big picture'. As a programmer, you do not need to understand how a physical level IP switch is implemented, even though you probably make use of a dozen of them every time you visit Internet. You may need to know SQL, but could care less about query optimization. And there is no need for any jack-of-all-trades knowing both how an accounting system is structured and how queries are optimized, even though they are both relevant to the same application. What we rather need, are jacks-of-one-trade, frequently referred to as 'domain experts'. People who know all the different aspects of a give user problem to be solved, from terminology of the trade, established work pattern, established standards of the trade, priorities, responsibility and security patterns, ... Far too often, the software developer doesn't have a clue about the real problem to be solved. Code modules, data structures, UI dialogs are made by guessing and often wrongful assumptions. It works for software development tools - they are great, and functional, because the software developer is a domain expert in that field. He rarely is in the field of document production systems, accounting systems, tools for music and sound editing, graphical work. Whenever you see great software in a non-software development field, chances are very high that the software is not developed in a software development environment: Sound editing software are made in the software group of that house of sound publishers, musicians and studio people. Accounting software is made the software group of that big accounting house. Graphic software is made by the people of the graphic trade. We should strive to make those domain experts as well qualified programmers as possible. Even if we are ourselves educated as 'software specialists', we should not be afraid of entering some (non-programming-specialist) domain to become one of the domain experts of that trade. (Well ... My impression is that the average age of the active Lounge members suggests that this is more a hint to your children and grandchildren rather than to yourself :-)) Truly great software is made by domain experts. Not by programming experts.
Religious freedom is the freedom
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ITPro Today[^]:
New technologies affect the skill mix needed to produce apps, but not everyone agrees on the impact.
Yes
Or I suppose I could have gone with the universal answer, "It depends"
Quote:
One specialize to know more about less, until he knows everything about nothing.
Not my quote
M.D.V. ;) If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about? Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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ITPro Today[^]:
New technologies affect the skill mix needed to produce apps, but not everyone agrees on the impact.
Yes
Or I suppose I could have gone with the universal answer, "It depends"
I thought you would have said "More or less."
I’ve given up trying to be calm. However, I am open to feeling slightly less agitated. I’m begging you for the benefit of everyone, don’t be STUPID.
