This is a discussion that always happens, in just about every context. It also depends massively on perspective. Take somebody who codes java and haskell, does

This is a discussion that always happens, in just about every context. It also depends massively on perspective. Take somebody who codes java and haskell, does database admin and web design, and hacks the linux Kernel: I'd call her a generalist. But from a wider perspective she might be a specialist: concentrating on hacking rather than literature, or business, or physics. It's all relative. [Incidentally, I'll mention that Isaiah Berlin's essay 'the hedgehog and the fox' is a classic of the 'generalists vs. specialists' genre, applying the division to writers and philosophers. I'm not a massive fan of it (dividing people up like that gets a bit superficial), but looking up papers citing it will get you into the recent literature on the subject]