

On Being Narrow - yarapavan
http://blog.computationalcomplexity.org/2009/10/on-being-narrow.html

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mrshoe
In March I was shopping around for a new job. It was common to be asked why I
was changing jobs (especially in this economy...). A big part of my answer was
that I wanted to try something new. I wanted to make sure that my resume
didn't pigeonhole me as a Python web developer. Even though I had been in that
field for my first 4 years out of college, I had worked in very different
domains previously and I wanted to keep my options open in the future. I enjoy
Python web development, but to avoid being too narrow I decided that my next
job would be with a different language in a different domain.

Most people understood that desire. A recruiter at one company where I
interviewed disagreed with the strategy, though. She said it's ok to play
around in a few different domains when you're young, but at some point you
need to pick one and stick with it. That way you can be seen as expert in that
domain and you can be considered eligible for higher level roles with more
decision-making responsibility.

I suppose I can see her point, but I sincerely hope she's wrong. I want my
horizons to always be broad.

~~~
weaksauce
Regarding the second recruiter, I wouldn't put too much stock in a recruiters
opinion. Do whatever you want to do in life and don't worry too much about
hitting the "ceiling." If you are on this forum then you probably are above
average when it comes to programming and a smart boss would be able to see
that programming language experience is secondary to problem solving and
personal skills.

~~~
donaq
Interesting. Why do you think that everyone on this forum is above average
when it comes to programming?

~~~
weaksauce
I definitely did not say everyone. Probably better and everyone on the forum
are two different subsets of the same population. That being said, if someone
is on this forum they are more likely to be better at programming than average
in my opinion.

Just giving a shit about what you do is a leg up on a lot of the people out in
the world.

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jacquesm
There's a real gem in there:

> You'd be surprised how much the tools, models and techniques of one field
> can apply in another.

That goes for anybody, not only for people in academia. I don't know how many
times I've profited from being able to apply an idea from a totally unrelated
field to software problems.

I remember reading the 'simulated annealing' paper long ago and thinking,
"wait a minute, if this is possible, what else is possible ?", and I haven't
stopped doing that. It's paid off numerous times.

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yarapavan
Some of the comments make me remind of an Isaiah Berlin’s best known essay in
which he distinguishes between two archetypes: the hedgehog and the fox.

“The fox knows many things; the hedgehog knows but one.”

To paraphrase him in his 1953 essay— The Hedgehog and the Fox:

"There is a line among the fragments of the Greek poet Archilochus which says:
'The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing'…[T]aken
figuratively, the words can be made to yield a sense in which they mark one of
the deepest differences which divide writers and thinkers, and, it may be,
human beings in general. For there exists a great chasm between those, on one
side, who relate everything to a single central vision, one system less or
more coherent or articulate, in terms of which they understand, think and feel
— a single, universal, organizing principle in terms of which alone all that
they are and say has significance — and, on the other side, those who pursue
many ends, often unrelated and even contradictory, connected, if at all, only
in some de facto way, for some psychological or physiological cause, related
by no moral or aesthetic principle…The first kind of intellectual and artistic
personality belongs to the hedgehogs, the second to the foxes."

The fox is the generalist, who moves from domain to domain with ease and
agility,examining large surface areas, covering wide spaces; the hedgehog is
the specialist, who slowly and meticulously delves deeply into the nature of a
single domain, uncovering secrets that lie beneath."

So who would you want to be? A Hedgehog, who have a single big idea or
explanation, or a Fox, which looks for a lot of intersecting causes?

~~~
yarapavan
Jim Collins says: "The fox is complex; the hedgehog simple. And the hedgehog
wins."

~~~
run4yourlives
Actually, extending the analogy, evolution shows that generalists tend to be
much more successful. It's the reason panda's are endangered and crows
dominate most cities.

~~~
xanados
Humans are the ultimate generalist

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eswat
There's a quote I've lifted from an old comic that I like to repeat to myself
every now and then: "specialization breeds weakness"

The same can be said about learning a broad range of skills and not excelling
in any of them. But for me I've been able to apply more useful ideas from
other fields to my core competency than the opposite.

