Generally what marklgr said. By tactics, I mean being up to date with the latest lib for -foo- and being on top of what the cool kids are doing, chasing down th

Generally what marklgr said. By tactics, I mean being up to date with the latest lib for -foo- and being on top of what the cool kids are doing, chasing down the rabbit-hole to find that one setting to improve db performance. Individual, almost atomic tasks, especially those in a changing landscape. Strategy is more about planning, forethought, and knowing ahead of time which avenues are worth pursuing and which aren't. As a very simplistic example, a tactician might spend a day down a rabbit-hole and improve a db's performance by a small but significant amount, and a strategist would not have spent that day, knowing that that db is going to be turned off in two weeks. Not the best example, really (and it implies that you're only one or the other, which isn't true at all). There is also overlap between the two. Perhaps a military analogue - tactics is about how to take the forts (shorter timeframes, clearer objectives, obvious goals), and strategy is about determining which forts are worth taking (long-term timeframes, murkier objectives, sometimes unclear goals, concern for secondary effects). The difference is also in scope, I guess. Being a good tactician benefits from energy and focused interest, something which the young'uns tend to have more of (caveat, caveat), and strategy benefits from forethought and experience, something which the old'uns tend to have more of (caveat, caveat, &c)