Really? I would dispute that.Guillermo Ishi wrote: . . . analogy to music . . . If you want to be a rock star, you do not also dawdle in jazz or bluegrass, and vice-versa. . . .
Tim Driven Development | Test until the fear goes away
Guillermo Ishi wrote:If you want to be a rock star, you do not also dawdle in jazz or bluegrass, and vice-versa. In fact you focus your energies and time as narrowly as possible. Versatility loses! It dilutes.
"The good news about computers is that they do what you tell them to do. The bad news is that they do what you tell them to do." -- Ted Nelson
Guillermo Ishi wrote:The question is does your web development suffer because you insist on giving equal time to programming devices. Or equal time to sports and television and other distractions.
"The good news about computers is that they do what you tell them to do. The bad news is that they do what you tell them to do." -- Ted Nelson
Guillermo Ishi wrote:Computer language-wise? How many languages do you know? How many platforms? The other day I was thinking of an analogy to music or to any other kind of career, really. If you want to be a rock star, you do not also dawdle in jazz or bluegrass, and vice-versa. In fact you focus your energies and time as narrowly as possible. Versatility loses! It dilutes. Even a Ph.D is for narrowness, not breadth.
No more Blub for me, thank you, Vicar.
chris webster wrote:
Well, your analogy doesn't seem to work for music - lots of top musicians can play lots of different instruments, even if they specialise in just one or two.
Henry Wong wrote:
chris webster wrote:
Well, your analogy doesn't seem to work for music - lots of top musicians can play lots of different instruments, even if they specialise in just one or two.
Unfortunately, this is an issue for any analogy. It may be mostly good -- as long as you remember that it is an analogy. If you try to stretch the analogy, it may become an issue. And of course, when you try to draw conclusion from it, it doesn't work well at all...
Henry
No more Blub for me, thank you, Vicar.
Guillermo Ishi wrote:I was a university trained classical musician. When I encountered my first "home computer" as they were called back in the day, it annihilated every other interest permanently
If you give equal time to piano, and trumpet and drums, you might go hungry.
If you give equal time to Java and Python and Scala and Ruby, there are intricacies of all that you will never "get". You won't be as fast as an equal who was focused. Just as an example that should be obvious. Just as obviously I'm not talking about getting yourself trapped in a dying field or language, etc.
No more Blub for me, thank you, Vicar.
No more Blub for me, thank you, Vicar.
But a heart surgeon who knows nothing about gout and kidney stones is a danger to patients who might have gout or kidney stones.Guillermo Ishi wrote: . . . The rock star would be crazy to dilute his energies on gout and kidney stones . . .
Guillermo Ishi wrote: A better analogy might be a medical specialist vs a G.P. What is a definite advantage to the G.P., a workaday guy, is a liability for the rock star heart surgeon. The rock star would be crazy to dilute his energies on gout and kidney stones
There are only two hard things in computer science: cache invalidation, naming things, and off-by-one errors
If you choose the wrong type of software, you can kill lots of people all in one fell swoop. Surgeons can only kill one person at a timechris webster wrote: . . . start poking around in somebody's internal organs without killing them! I'll stick to workaday software development, I reckon...
Guillermo Ishi wrote:Computer language-wise?
Consider Paul's rocket mass heater. |