

What Young People Don't Know - espadagroup
http://betashop.com/post/28856491173/5-things-young-people-dont-know

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elric1v
I also agree with 2-5, but don't agree that specialists always get further
than generalists. I'm very much a generalist -- within the fairly broad realm
of infrastructure architecture, that is -- and I think that's served me very
well. To understand the whole thing, whatever it is, is very valuable.

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espadagroup
Within your world you may be a generalist, but the OP is not a programmer and
many if not most of the people he is talking about are not either. To them and
most people you are very specialized.

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mike626
"Specialists get farther than generalists." I think this is a statement of
very dubious veracity.

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B-Con
I thought it was odd as well. I think that he meant that the guy who knows a
subject very well is more likely to be advanced in responsibility/seniority
quickly.

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greenyoda
If I wanted to promote somebody to be the lead developer for a small project,
I might be satisfied with someone who knew the code for that project very
well. But if I wanted to promote someone beyond that level, I'd be looking for
somebody who knew different parts of the company's products and how they
worked together (e.g., the UI and the back-end), and who understood the needs
of the customers to some degree -- someone who could see the "big picture".

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patrickambron
He's talking about the "jack of all trades, master of none" type person.

Just because you are the absolute best at one thing does not mean you are
incompetent in all other areas.

To take your example: of course you wouldn't want to promote someone who only
knows the code of one project very well and of course you want to promote
someone who understands how all the parts of the product work together.
However, the person who knows how all the parts work together and is the
absolute _best_ at shipping code, get a lot farther than the person who knows
how they all work together, but doesn't execute any given function well enough
to handle on his own

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frankienwafili
I don't think that any of those 5 things are particularly restricted to or
more commonly found amongst young people.

