

Being a web generalist - ryanSrich
http://generalist.io/a-generalist

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ibstudios
I too am a generalist. The longer way of saying it is that I like to solve all
of the problems and want complete control.

Nice article!

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recroad
One should strive to be a jack of all trades and king of some.

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kaonashi
I'd been used to working all areas of the stack and recently took a 'front-
end' position, I'm finding the focus a bit limiting.

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contingencies
I've been web generalizing since ~1995.

I'd say it's becoming much harder to maintain something close to the forefront
of knowledge in all areas (ie. generalise).

Once upon a time every HTML tag and every browser quirk, was something you
could remember. Javascript was a toy. People still did ecommerce without
HTTPS. We still wrote tags in <CAPS>. We _wrote_ tags instead of generating
them.

At least one good thing happened in all this time: the death of flash.

But now we have serious scripting, DOM manipulation, SVG, canvas, 24x7x365
uptime targets, redundancy and scaling. Sophisticated attackers. DDoS.
Increasing layers of bullshit hoops just for functional email. Global reach -
multilingual, multi-directional text that varies so much in shape and form you
can't easily use a single stylesheet or layout for. Instant messaging and
social networks. The internet's logical geography of access latencies.
Adaptive GeoDNS responses. Combine that with mobile, now the globally dominant
internet access methodology, which has made deployment a _lot_ more difficult,
particularly if you really need to hit all platforms, unify code and styling
across your app and web experience, and you want to hook native features
otherwise unavailable. There are possible pipelines, sure, but it's far from
trivial to hit _all_ platforms, hit them well, maintain control and testing.
Payments is still a pain in the ass, if you want to support a few locales,
and/or small payments and/or real time digital service provision (impossibly
expensive with cards due to chargeback risk).

So, my fellow renaissance peeps, I must confess: I saw the title and thought
this post was going to sound the death of the web generalist.

As it stands, it's more an assertive statement of "don't lock me in an
organizational box", which remains very intelligent, but perhaps doesn't
really reveal much otherwise. (Though HR people should get with the program!)

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ryanSrich
When I was writing this I felt much of the same sentiment however I came to a
different conclusion.

I feel that generalists now more than ever can aggregate a set of skills
necessary to make an impact on the web. Most of these languages, frameworks,
tools, shifts in thought are attempts to simplify the complexity.

I remember seeing the 15 minute rails blog when I was 16 and thinking how
insane that was. I can't imagine how it must have felt for folks that worked
in the industry during the 90's when it cost millions just to get a site up
and running.

Couple these tools with the abundance of knowledge online and I'd say the age
of the renaissance man is alive and well.

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contingencies
_the age of the renaissance man is alive and well._

Well argued, though I would say only in flatter organizations or in very
specific cases. Conventional management structures kill off breadth of
thinking very effectively.

