
There Are No Experts in the Web Industry - atom-morgan
http://www.adrianpelletier.com/2015/05/07/there-are-no-experts-in-the-web-industry/
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bshimmin
I fundamentally disagree with this. New things for the web appear all the
time, undeniably, but their appearance doesn't invalidate your expertise with
older things, especially given that the new things are rarely either entirely
novel or a complete replacement for the older things.

~~~
adrianpelletier
Thanks for the feedback. I do see your point as well; even though web
languages and design techniques are constantly changing, our end goal is
usually the same. However, I still run into too many web "experts" who think
they've learned it all and, in my opinion, that's an outlook that will quickly
make you obsolete on the web.

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codingdave
The author's final point is quite valid - to not become complacent about your
expertise.

But the idea that expertise does not exist is flawed. I'm old enough to have
been working online since before "the web", and while there are rapid changes
in the specific toolkits, the core technology moves slower.

Sure, the hosting is now virtual not physical. SSL exists. Websockets exist.
Javascript is its own beast now. The layers of caching and load balancing can
be scary to us plain old developers. But the core HTTP request/response cycle,
and the rendering and running of HTML and scripts has not had a fundamental
paradigm change. DNS still drives end user connectivity, and the same old 7
layer network model still applies.

So yes, some things change, but don't throw the rest of it out just because
you are picking up a new language or three. The picture is bigger than that.

~~~
adrianpelletier
Excellent comment, I fully agree with what you're saying. My intent was never
to suggest "throwing out" previous knowledge but to instead recognize there's
always more to learn and to keep building on that. Once you stop learning, the
web quickly surpasses you.

~~~
tracker1
I never stopped, and sometimes feel a little overwhelmed... I try to stay
abreast of what's going on, even outside of what I'm working with. At least
enough to have knowledge of what's on the horizon or in my peripheral...

That said, even with what I'm actively tracking, mostly JavaScript heavy web
applications, Node/iojs, ES6/ES2015, ES7/ESNext, BabelJS, React, Riot,
Mercury, Angular, etc.; It's a lot to keep up with. Everything gets to be
pretty significant very quickly. That doesn't even include advances in .Net
(ASP.Net/MVC, core-clr, etc), Java, Python, Go, the list goes on. It's
impossible to _know_ every tool. But it is possible to know and understand the
concepts behind web applications, which aren't changing quite as quickly. I
understand how SPDY/HTTP2/WebSockets and even bits of WebRTC work. If you
understand how the pieces fit together, and how to bend them to your will...

If you understand how web applications work, you might be an expert.

If you aren't afraid to look at and consider new tools, you might be an
expert.

If you know when to be pragmatic about your software design, you might be an
expert.

If you don't loosely apply a software design pattern because it kind of fits,
you might be an expert.

There's no absolute, it's just a matter of knowing more than most, and being
able to apply it in practice.

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lordnacho
This also means you'll only last if you enjoy the work. If you don't like it,
learning a new framework every few months will make you go insane.

~~~
adrianpelletier
There's a lot of truth to that. Basically, if you don't enjoy learning all the
time, web design/development is not for you.

~~~
atom-morgan
This is huge in my opinion. I've noticed the market for labor in my area has
changed quite a bit just over the past year and this is primarily about what
framework employers expect you to know or be familiar with. This could be
extremely frustrating for many people.

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jaimebuelta
An expert is not someone that knows everything, but someone that knows more
than you... And enough to be resourceful, if we are talking about profesional
work.

I'm pretty sure than the author knows way more about web development than his
customers, so he's the expert then...

There are lots of "local experts" that do an amazing work pleasing their
customers without having to know absolutely everything.

~~~
zenogais
Yeah, I think missing that expertise is a spectrum and not a binary is a big
mistake. There are plenty of sub-par programmers who would never survive in a
high-skill environment, but who consistently satisfy their clients. This is an
important reality to acknowledge and understand.

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huuu
I've been doing webdevelopment for almost 15 years. And I think little has
changed. Yes now we have transparency, animation, dropshadows, simple Ajax,
and so on. But in the end we are still dealing with the same simple request
and building webapps is still difficult.

~~~
geromek
[https://twitter.com/sriramk/status/589974366055636994](https://twitter.com/sriramk/status/589974366055636994)
Original posted on 20th April, 2015

"It's 2015, The top story on HN is how to center text in CSS. Humanity's
takeover by advanced AI might take a while."

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strictnein
I think his view of blacksmithing in history is pretty narrow and was
constructive to fit his broader point. I'd assume the most respected
blacksmiths were constantly testing different metals, weapon and armor types
and shapes, smelting techniques, etc.

~~~
adrianpelletier
Fair enough and thanks for the comment. The point I was trying to illustrate
was the pace at which technologies evolve and few are quicker than the web
industry. I wholeheartedly agree that the best blacksmiths were constantly
improving but it was relatively slow compared to how quickly the web changes
(i.e. they didn't have new tools/materials to learn every single day).

~~~
killface
What about doctors and lawyers? Their professions change day-to-day, and often
at the whim of political leaders. Something as broad as "law" you can't be an
expert in, but you can be an expert in patent law or family law or whatever.

~~~
adrianpelletier
That's an interesting point and I suppose if we broke it down and asked can
you be an expert in just HTML or CSS, the answer would likely be yes. However,
if that's _all_ you knew, you'd have a hard time being hired. The message I
was trying to convey is to have a web career, you need to be constantly learn
new things all the time.

Thanks for adding to the discussion.

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spion
One person I'd definitely consider an expert is John Lindquist
([https://egghead.io/](https://egghead.io/) and
[https://github.com/johnlindquist](https://github.com/johnlindquist)) - not
just because he's always up to date but also because he's got some keen
insights about many of those modern technologies (especially Angular). But as
far as I can see tracking them is basically a full-time job, even for him.

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coldcode
It used to be an expert was anyone at least 40 miles from home. I've always
wondered how to frame that comment on an internet scale.

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killface
There's a fundamental difference between knowing the language/framework of the
week, and being an expert in something. Expertise does not necessarily imply
broad-stroke coverage of available tools. It means you use the tools you have
to their maximum potential, even finding novel uses for them.

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douche
An old-timer I worked with once had this joke about experts:

What's an expert? Well, X is an unknown, and a spurt is a drip under
pressure...

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ourcat
Spot on. To me, It's also about constantly improving the "jack:master trade
ratio" in a constantly evolving world.

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a3voices
I think the only way to be close to an expert is to have total control over
the web development process from start to finish, and re-use the same
technologies that you have experience with. For example, if you've made 100
web apps in PHP and native JS, you will be much more productive and make
higher quality software than someone who keeps jumping to new languages and
frameworks.

~~~
TheCapn
Yeah, its an argument of Breadth vs. Depth of knowledge. An "expert" maintains
a healthy portion of both.

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lurcio


