4 ms·

Your recommendation to become the top 10 in something is either impossible, or only achievable by narrowing definitions down to inanity. I can easily be the top

Your recommendation to become the top 10 in something is either impossible, or only achievable by narrowing definitions down to inanity. I can easily be the top 10 in <industry> <feature> written in <specific language version> <specific framework version> run on <specific infrastructure>, but who cares? Recommending that people become the top 10 in their industry is an impossible recommendation; as there might be hundreds of people in my company who perform a similar role, let alone within my industry. It’s a bit like recommending someone become one of the top 10 basketball players to make money; someone will do it, but the chances are so slim that it’s a bad recommendation. Also, how do you define “top 10”?

Communitivity 6y ago
'Top 10' is a convenient label. It's more about the answer to the question 'who are the most respected experts in X within the Y', and maybe even make X be instead 'X using Z'. Several careers having been made by being known as a leader using a particular technology, or a co-creator of the technology from the beginning, though it always comes with other things to back it up as well: * Tim Berners-Lee - the web, W3C * Peter Saint-Andre - XMPP, messaging RFCs * DHH - Ruby on Rails * Martin Fowler - Design Patterns ..and many more. Yes, getting to the Tim Berners-Lee level of industry recognition is unreasonable to expect for most. But I think it is reasonable to think that this is doable, with the depth of the expertise niche needed to be outstanding being inversely proportional to the talent of the expert. One person might have an expertise niche of messaging, while another has RabbitMQ as their main niche. Both are viable to base a living off of.
- ashtonkem 6y ago
  At a certain point you’re talking about programmer celebrities and trying to draw general career advice from them, which is silly. We can’t all be celebrities, and any career advice based on that is kind of pointless. Now talking about having a niche is a fair argument, but that’s literally a completely new argument. “Be in the top 10” and “specialize” are not the same pieces of advice, at all.

Communitivity 6y ago

'Top 10' is a convenient label. It's more about the answer to the question 'who are the most respected experts in X within the Y', and maybe even make X be instead 'X using Z'. Several careers having been made by being known as a leader using a particular technology, or a co-creator of the technology from the beginning, though it always comes with other things to back it up as well: * Tim Berners-Lee - the web, W3C * Peter Saint-Andre - XMPP, messaging RFCs * DHH - Ruby on Rails * Martin Fowler - Design Patterns ..and many more. Yes, getting to the Tim Berners-Lee level of industry recognition is unreasonable to expect for most. But I think it is reasonable to think that this is doable, with the depth of the expertise niche needed to be outstanding being inversely proportional to the talent of the expert. One person might have an expertise niche of messaging, while another has RabbitMQ as their main niche. Both are viable to base a living off of.

ashtonkem 6y ago
At a certain point you’re talking about programmer celebrities and trying to draw general career advice from them, which is silly. We can’t all be celebrities, and any career advice based on that is kind of pointless. Now talking about having a niche is a fair argument, but that’s literally a completely new argument. “Be in the top 10” and “specialize” are not the same pieces of advice, at all.