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I'm going to make a bold statement that might not be well received around here. There is no smart people in what you think "webby" is. Smart people tend to be

I'm going to make a bold statement that might not be well received around here. There is no smart people in what you think "webby" is. Smart people tend to be the master of their domain: data mining, capacity planning, operations, specific business domains, embedded magicians, security experts (the real ones, not the fake ones), OS masters, programming language linguist. Most people can write RoR, Django, CodeIgniter apps (or, known as the CRUD app). Very few people can do Business Analysis, Data Analytic, understand (and fix, improve, innovate) Healthcare, or bend Oracle as they wish so it worth for their bucks (surprisingly not a lot people can do this). You can hire a $100k Ruby developer that know Ruby inside out, but what are you going to do with that knowledge except to build a company around Ruby language? (improve VM, sell enterprise supports, etc). I don't think you'd hire this fellow to write a crud app. That would be a non optimal business decision. Node.js is the new hotness. Alpha-programmers will flock there for a while just like they did with RoR. So you're going to hire these programmers for 2-3 years, 4 max before they jump out. What are you going to do with Node.js other than to re-write pretty much almost everything that exist in another platforms already. New language/platform becomes popular, people (early adopters) flock to it, then the notable ones (the next early adopters) flock to it as well, then the rest. I don't mean to disrespect the people who improve new platforms but most problems have been solved. All they do is to re-implement that in another language. MVC, ORM, Caching, Routes are still what they are in other platforms.

cppsnob 15y ago
> I'm going to make a bold statement that might not be well received around here. There is no smart people in what you think "webby" is A large number of web programmers I've met do not have a degree, they know very little theory, and often do not understand the most fundamental concepts like memory allocation or semaphores. Though, I'm not sure I'd go as far as saying that that means there are no smart people. I've met a lot of smart people who fit the description I just laid out. Their problem is they just don't have the training or experience to make good technical decisions.
- hello_moto 15y ago
  Perhaps I should revise my remark. Web Developers are the new "average". This is what people will be judged upon as the entry point.
phamilton 15y ago
I think there are other types of smart people. People with skills rather than knowledge. How many people are able to quickly understand new problems, new environments, etc. While a db master is helpful in scaling a big project, the guy who can wear many hats is invaluable in the early stages. To answer the original question, learn (well) as many frameworks/languages/paradigms as you can. The process of learning something new is the real value.
- hello_moto 15y ago
  I agree with your last statement. Learn as much as you can, the process of learning will pay off. No doubt. On the other hand, skill-smart people, or what some might call "raw-talent" tend to self-destruct on their own if they refuse to listen. Raw-talent tend to make many mistakes because they have no knowledge. That's why you need both skill and knowledge. > How many people are able to quickly understand new problems, new environments, etc Raw talent might be able to learn new things quicker assuming their mind is able to accept this new things. Sometime raw talent can be so stubborn that they refused to learn new things and just believe in their own raw-talent. I'm quite sure we've all met a very super smart programmer yet very stubborn and wouldn't listen. > the guy who can wear many hats is invaluable in the early stages Again, agree with you. Assuming such person exist. In reality, anyone can be the guy who can wear many hats as long as he/she is willing to work hard and longer hour to do research on topics that he/she doesn't know. Full-stack developers that wear many hats tend to specialize in one set of stack. He/she might not be at the level of DB master that knows at least 3 popular DB such as SQL Server, MySQL, and Oracle. But a full-stack developer, at the very least, must know a single popular DB (pick one from above) and almost reaching the expert level or else we don't share the same definition of an all-round professional.
noodle 15y ago
it probably won't be well received because its contradictory. why can't a smart person be the master of the web development domain? and i can tell you from experience that there are plenty of dumb people working in business analtyics, data analytics, healthcare, etc.. smart people are smart people regardless of where they work or what tools they use. you shouldn't denigrate someone for choosing something to master that you deem as "less smart".
- hello_moto 15y ago
  I'm sure there are stupid people in every domain. It's not like everybody in Analytic is superbly smart. But if all people do is just jumping around between programming languages and re-invent the same thing over and over again, they just hit their limit. They're probably a little bit better than the average developer. Or perhaps they just work harder and more passionate, not necessarily smarter. I don't mean to denigrate people as I don't really care whether they are smart or not because I never really care of intellectual ranking. Personally, I only care if a person is a good person or not. I'm merely replying that most web-developers hit their ceiling and probably not what the OP consider "smart". Please view smart or not smart as some sort of true/false without any insult related to it. Not as bad or good.
  - noodle 15y ago
    i would argue your point a different way. i think it is one of two things: 1) web development is where the jobs are, right now. below average and average developers will (or have to) follow the jobs and the money. superior developers are already making top dollar and/or are already in a job they enjoy, so they don't really need to move. my company is hiring like crazy right now for web developers and we can't seem to find intelligent/qualified employees anywhere, though we know they're out there. 2) some jobs are just straight up difficult to do. and i don't just mean difficult as in "it takes intelligence to do this job". there are mentally "easier" jobs that some people just do not want to take because of the demands of the job. being smart perhaps makes them easier to do, and being so difficult these jobs tend to command higher salaries. so the smart people tend to filter into these positions. that is typically why you'll see extremely smart people making a ton of money in niche industries, in my opinion. in large industries, the smart people usually get promoted out of hands-on coding positions, or they're tougher to spot from the outside looking in because of various other reasons.
sanderjd 15y ago
If I shift my internal definition of "smart" to mean what it seems to mean in the context of your post, then I can't really argue, but aren't we starting to get some tunnel-vision in this community about what it means to be "smart"? It's absolutely not true that "most people" can write CRUD apps, but perhaps you meant "most programmers", at which point you've limited your set of people to a group who understand a very complex machine well enough to make it do their bidding. I personally don't know any programmers I wouldn't call "smart", but maybe I'm just a webby dummy myself and your definition of the word is better than mine.

cppsnob 15y ago

> I'm going to make a bold statement that might not be well received around here. There is no smart people in what you think "webby" is A large number of web programmers I've met do not have a degree, they know very little theory, and often do not understand the most fundamental concepts like memory allocation or semaphores. Though, I'm not sure I'd go as far as saying that that means there are no smart people. I've met a lot of smart people who fit the description I just laid out. Their problem is they just don't have the training or experience to make good technical decisions.

hello_moto 15y ago
Perhaps I should revise my remark. Web Developers are the new "average". This is what people will be judged upon as the entry point.

phamilton 15y ago

I think there are other types of smart people. People with skills rather than knowledge. How many people are able to quickly understand new problems, new environments, etc. While a db master is helpful in scaling a big project, the guy who can wear many hats is invaluable in the early stages. To answer the original question, learn (well) as many frameworks/languages/paradigms as you can. The process of learning something new is the real value.

hello_moto 15y ago
I agree with your last statement. Learn as much as you can, the process of learning will pay off. No doubt. On the other hand, skill-smart people, or what some might call "raw-talent" tend to self-destruct on their own if they refuse to listen. Raw-talent tend to make many mistakes because they have no knowledge. That's why you need both skill and knowledge. > How many people are able to quickly understand new problems, new environments, etc Raw talent might be able to learn new things quicker assuming their mind is able to accept this new things. Sometime raw talent can be so stubborn that they refused to learn new things and just believe in their own raw-talent. I'm quite sure we've all met a very super smart programmer yet very stubborn and wouldn't listen. > the guy who can wear many hats is invaluable in the early stages Again, agree with you. Assuming such person exist. In reality, anyone can be the guy who can wear many hats as long as he/she is willing to work hard and longer hour to do research on topics that he/she doesn't know. Full-stack developers that wear many hats tend to specialize in one set of stack. He/she might not be at the level of DB master that knows at least 3 popular DB such as SQL Server, MySQL, and Oracle. But a full-stack developer, at the very least, must know a single popular DB (pick one from above) and almost reaching the expert level or else we don't share the same definition of an all-round professional.

noodle 15y ago

it probably won't be well received because its contradictory. why can't a smart person be the master of the web development domain? and i can tell you from experience that there are plenty of dumb people working in business analtyics, data analytics, healthcare, etc.. smart people are smart people regardless of where they work or what tools they use. you shouldn't denigrate someone for choosing something to master that you deem as "less smart".

hello_moto 15y ago
I'm sure there are stupid people in every domain. It's not like everybody in Analytic is superbly smart. But if all people do is just jumping around between programming languages and re-invent the same thing over and over again, they just hit their limit. They're probably a little bit better than the average developer. Or perhaps they just work harder and more passionate, not necessarily smarter. I don't mean to denigrate people as I don't really care whether they are smart or not because I never really care of intellectual ranking. Personally, I only care if a person is a good person or not. I'm merely replying that most web-developers hit their ceiling and probably not what the OP consider "smart". Please view smart or not smart as some sort of true/false without any insult related to it. Not as bad or good.
- noodle 15y ago
  i would argue your point a different way. i think it is one of two things: 1) web development is where the jobs are, right now. below average and average developers will (or have to) follow the jobs and the money. superior developers are already making top dollar and/or are already in a job they enjoy, so they don't really need to move. my company is hiring like crazy right now for web developers and we can't seem to find intelligent/qualified employees anywhere, though we know they're out there. 2) some jobs are just straight up difficult to do. and i don't just mean difficult as in "it takes intelligence to do this job". there are mentally "easier" jobs that some people just do not want to take because of the demands of the job. being smart perhaps makes them easier to do, and being so difficult these jobs tend to command higher salaries. so the smart people tend to filter into these positions. that is typically why you'll see extremely smart people making a ton of money in niche industries, in my opinion. in large industries, the smart people usually get promoted out of hands-on coding positions, or they're tougher to spot from the outside looking in because of various other reasons.

sanderjd 15y ago

If I shift my internal definition of "smart" to mean what it seems to mean in the context of your post, then I can't really argue, but aren't we starting to get some tunnel-vision in this community about what it means to be "smart"? It's absolutely not true that "most people" can write CRUD apps, but perhaps you meant "most programmers", at which point you've limited your set of people to a group who understand a very complex machine well enough to make it do their bidding. I personally don't know any programmers I wouldn't call "smart", but maybe I'm just a webby dummy myself and your definition of the word is better than mine.