
Paint drip people, a successor to T-shaped people - KentBeck
https://www.facebook.com/notes/kent-beck/paint-drip-people/1226700000696195
======
TeMPOraL
Damn it, they gave it a name. Now we can expect a lot of pop-
psychology/business media bullshit about this concept for the coming decade.

But yeah, this article generally captures my thoughts about the "T-shaped
employee" thing, except that I personally want to be "bicycle-wheel shaped"
human. First, a _human_ , because my employment does not define me, and by
"bicycle-wheel", for lack of better term, I mean many specializations in
different areas that end up connecting with each other.

As for the feasability of the "T-shaped" vs "paint drip", I think the latter
is better - sure, ceteris paribus, you won't be able to put as much energy
into many things as you can put in one, but I believe there are diminishing
returns in specializations - and since the job market, like most markets, is
terribly inefficient, you can probably get away with multiple specializations
up until robots replace us all.

~~~
munificent
> by "bicycle-wheel", for lack of better term, I mean many specializations in
> different areas that end up connecting with each other.

This is the part that really resonates with me.

I'm one of those people that naturally has way too many interests and hobbies
than there are hours in the day. What I find time and again is that as I go
far enough into some new interest, it starts to converge and connect to my
other ones. I see similarities, or ideas where I can combine multiple
interests to produce something that I couldn't make with just one of them.

These days, I don't even really see separation between them. I'm just a big
amorphous blob of all of this stuff, jumbled together. The jumbling together
is way more important than any constituent part.

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _What I find time and again is that as I go far enough into some new
> interest, it starts to converge and connect to my other ones. I see
> similarities, or ideas where I can combine multiple interests to produce
> something that I couldn 't make with just one of them._

I've experienced the same thing. I used to joke that if you go far enough in
any discipline, you'll end up in philosophy and abstract math. But it's more
than that. Reality does not recognize specializations and boundaries. Reality
_is_ that "amorphous blob of all of this stuff, jumbled together". Drawing
boundaries help us make sense of the world, but it's important to recognize
boundaries are somewhat arbitrary and we're free to redraw them to fit our
needs better.

~~~
jcater
Somewhat related:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Getting_to_Philosoph...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Getting_to_Philosophy)

"Clicking on the first lowercase link in the main text of a Wikipedia article,
and then repeating the process for subsequent articles, usually eventually
gets one to the Philosophy article. As of May 26, 2011, 94.52% of all articles
in Wikipedia lead eventually to the article Philosophy."

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
Neat. Using the x86 Wikipedia article as a starting point, and clicking the
first lower case link repeatedly, it took me 45 clicks to get to the
Philosophy.

~~~
mikewhy
Hm, using the site linked in the article[1] x86 seems to be only 10 hops away
from Philosophy.

[1]: [http://xefer.com/wikipedia](http://xefer.com/wikipedia)

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
Ah, yep, you're right, it's only 10 hops. Must have done something wrong when
I tried it the first time.

------
Xcelerate
This goes along with the notion that the typical STEM person is interested in
music/art/etc. about as much as the average person, but the typical Nobel
Prize winner has a vastly higher interest in these alternative activities than
the average person:

[http://priceonomics.com/the-correlation-between-arts-and-
cra...](http://priceonomics.com/the-correlation-between-arts-and-crafts-and-a)

I think the idea of being an "expert in a field" is becoming less valuable
today than it used to be. Because there are so many experts in so many fields,
they all share the same knowledge, ideas, and preconceptions, and thus the
only way to make further progress is to incorporate original ideas from other
fields. It goes along with the study that showed that interdisciplinary
research has lower citations in the short-term, but many more citations in the
long-term.

~~~
gearhart
Historically, there seem to have been many _more_ multi-disciplinary
experts[1], it's simply the last few centuries where academic specialisation
has been the norm.

My general belief has always been that such things were driven by wealth
inequality that allowed small numbers of people to dedicate themselves highly
to the pursuit of general academia, which was out of reach for the general
masses, and so they could be the leaders of many fields. (Although I will be
the first to admit that I have little evidence for it, it simply seems a
likely explanation given the historical context.)

Potentially this is a re-incarnation of the same phenomenon - we've reached a
point where somebody who is successful enough within their field is given
immense freedom to explore other areas.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymath](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymath)
plus anecdotal considerations of every Greek you can remember

~~~
bbctol
Honestly, I think another reason for so many ancient polymaths is that the
fields themselves were less developed, and took less time to fully learn. I in
no way want to put down Renaissance polymaths, who were tremendously
impressive, but it simply takes less time to learn up to the cutting edge of
mathematics or chemistry in 1660 than 2016.

------
GCA10
The "paint drip" approach is great for people who can pull it off, and the
opening account of Keith Adams is inspiring. But that same approach to life
also is a pretty apt description of low-focus, easily distracted people.

I interviewed a job candidate once who had five masters degrees in unrelated
fields. In the first five minutes, he sounded amazing. By about minute 15, I
realized that his completion rate was very close to zero. And that made it
hard for me to think of any job where he'd be effective.

Diverse interests can be great. A commitment to life-long learning is
inherently a huge plus. But cohesion (even if it's slow and accidental) feels
like it needs to be the third part of the formula.

~~~
KentBeck
Following the drip down the canvas is as important as moving the brush along
(to stay with the metaphor).

------
franciscop
A really good example of this would be TJ, who is known in the JS community as
one of the authors of Express.js and has done a lot of Node.js-related stuff.
But I follow TJ on twitter and he does a lot of unrelated work and has started
a company recently [3]. Another good example would be Elon Musk, whom I think
needs no introduction here.

[1] [https://github.com/tj](https://github.com/tj)

[2] [https://twitter.com/tjholowaychuk](https://twitter.com/tjholowaychuk)

[3] [https://apex.sh/ping/](https://apex.sh/ping/)

~~~
STRiDEX
We have an ongoing joke at our office where we ask if TJ wrote it. It being a
package we're adding to our project. Was true more often in the past, but its
still funny.

~~~
d0lph
Wasn't there a theory a while back that TJ was not even a real person, but a
collective, simply because of how many things he was involved in?

~~~
jaredsohn
[https://www.quora.com/TJ-Holowaychuk-1/How-is-TJ-
Holowaychuk...](https://www.quora.com/TJ-Holowaychuk-1/How-is-TJ-Holowaychuk-
so-insanely-productive)

------
yumaikas
Very interesting metaphor. I would say that skilled peoe don't _always_ plan
their next project, but I do on occasion.

I can strongly relate to having a lot of little side projects however. That
seems to be where I learn the most stuff. I've even turned a lot of
programming class projects into more ambitious side projects at times.

I've also found that I often have to attempt a technology or system more than
once before I get properly comfortable with it. It seems to have worked that
way with Go, Phoenix/Elixir, Postgres, Love2d, and so on. My ability to do
well in programming has more to do with many side hours spent researching and
playing. New stuff takes a bit to settle in.

------
projectramo
A lot of the attributes of "skilled people" could apply to all people. For
instance:

"Skilled people don’t plan their next focus area. Sometimes it seems
completely unrelated to their previous focus area."

So does this mean we should not plan our next focus area? What if someone is
naturally inclined to plan their focus area, should they resist the urge?

~~~
TearsInTheRain
An important caveat to not planning your next focus area is that you need to
also always be exploring.

------
AndrewOMartin
Also there are the people whose proficiencies follow a Gaussian distribution,
otherwise known as "Normal people".

~~~
Nacraile
I'm quibbling, but: I think the pareto distribution is more realistic than the
gaussian. ("80% of your capability is allocated to 20% of your skills")

------
johnloeber
Does anyone else think that these simplistic reductions/analogies are woefully
inadequate for actually understanding the people you encounter and work with?

~~~
trevyn
Yes, but they're great at driving traffic to your blog. Welcome to 2016. :(

------
bluetwo
(To paraphrase the discussion)... All metaphors are wrong, but some metaphors
are useful...

------
adamnemecek
I guess this is a good place for me to ask how do people prioritize what to
learn? Also what are your steps to learning something. My recurring issue is
that most books/resources stop at this semi intermediate level, and then you
are on your own. And figuring out how to progress is sometimes a bit too time
consuming.

~~~
yumaikas
My strategy has been to think of a project to do, and then to try to match my
tech to that. For instance, I picked up a bit of Love2D at LudumDare 34.
Sometimes it works in reverse, I wrote a blog engine for junglecoder.com
because I wanted to learn Go and the nature of running servers on the web
better. But I have also had a lot of time my hands in the past, so YMMV. After
a certain point, programming become more about logistics than individual
effort. Another good way to prioritize what to learn, especially if you don't
have any good ideas, is to follow where the money flows. If you want to make
small contract websites, PHP is a decent choice (as much as I'd never choose
it myself, but I have taste issues). C# is about the easiest way to get
started on windows for just about anything. Elixir seems like a promising
tech, especially with what Phoenix has on offer. Programming is time consuming
in the real world, unless you're deep in your comfort zone, but that place has
often already been automated anyway.

This article seems to be a decent approach as well. I like a lot of what James
Hauge has to say.

[http://prog21.dadgum.com/202.html](http://prog21.dadgum.com/202.html)

~~~
adamnemecek
Lol my issue isn't with lack of ideas its hat I have too many things I want to
learn. But yeah project based learning is a given.

I'm not actually talking about programming, I like to think of myself as
somewhat experienced, but I'd like to get for example into 3D modeling and I'm
not sure where to start.

~~~
yumaikas
Yeah. Getting started in a new discipline isn't easy either. Between jargon,
investing in tools, and figuring out where all the good documentation is and
purchasing it (most other disciplines don't give away most of their best
ideas), somethings just getting started is a project unto itself. Good luck in
3D modeling.

------
mathattack
Interesting analogy. I think this captures the paths of creatives more than
large company people. The T-model is great for consulting firms (like McKinsey
who uses it) as well as conglomerates like P&G. Catching the interest of
someone who can move from Operating Systems to compilers to website design is
very different.

The one thing I'd add to this is Paint Drip people tend to bring what they
learned from one area to others. It's not so just disjointed and random "let's
see what drips."

------
calcsam
It's worth reading some of Keith's posts about systems and OS on Quora, some
of the most interesting stuff I've seen on those topics:
[https://www.quora.com/profile/Keith-
Adams](https://www.quora.com/profile/Keith-Adams)

------
visakanv
And so the circle of metaphors continues.

------
jventura
I think I didn't understood the analogy! Is he basically saying that people
with natural curiosity explore and do lots of different things?

------
JetSpiegel
T-shapes, paint drip... Dos this means squares are the best kind of people?

