4 ms·

I honestly don't think it's possible, and I don't think what you've described is a block shape. You can gain near-expertise in all the fields you mentioned, but

I honestly don't think it's possible, and I don't think what you've described is a block shape. You can gain near-expertise in all the fields you mentioned, but true expertise means keeping up with the changes in your relevant area. If you commit to maintaining an expertise-level of knowledge in all the domains you mentioned, you're going to spend 75% of your life reading instead of doing. I like to say that my skillset follows a pareto distribution. That is, roughly 80% of my knowledge is accumulated to the top 20% of my areas of interest. But that doesn't mean I suck at the bottom 80% of my areas of interest. It just means that I'm fully committed to constantly bettering myself in my core domain (in my case, front-end development), and also keeping up to date with the latest advances. I also know how to work with databases, and I'm somewhat familiar with newer ideas and trends (Snowflake, Planetscale, CockroachDB, etc). But aside from some basic marketing copy, I couldn't really explain why these new databases are any better than what we had previously. And I certainly wouldn't want to be trusted to make a decision on which one to use. I know I could figure out how to work with them, and I'm content with that.

pclmulqdq 4y ago
I think the best professionals I have worked with have been "wedge-shaped" people, not "T-shaped." People who are very familiar with their area, still intimately familiar with surrounding concepts, less familiar with things around that, and so on. Interestingly, I think this kind of person often gets mistaken for being "I"- or "l"-shaped.
- hef19898 4y ago
  V shaped, or U shaped, people get mistaken for I shapes (man, how I love those management-sized oversimplified concepts, especially those putting people in boxes) when only one side of the U/V is used. Has all kinds of funny side effects, my personal favorite is when people realize, after having classified you as a I, that there is more to you. And then, using the biggest about faces possible, to recognize it, because of course once you are classified as something this cannot change.
  - switchbak 4y ago
    I've got a background in Agile consulting (yeah, sorry), frontend work from way back in the day, and low-level systems and optimization work. None of this is factored into my current job, and I've lately been labeled the "database guy" ... when that's one of my newest and not particularly impressive competencies. I still have yet to find a way to manage external perception of my abilities to even a minimal degree. Very draining.
    - hef19898 4y ago
      In my current job, I just gave up on it. I am the "process guy", and lately, due to pressure from IT (of all people, since I am in Supply Chain Operations), the "ERP guy". The latter I did last 10 odd years ago, the former is a side effect of thinking about why things in my domain are the way they are, some lean training and, mainly, being good at operations. Operations being, I'd say, my true core competency from which everything else is fed. No chance to sell that where I am now... I'll see what I do about it come Jan. 100% agree on the draining part.
satvikpendem 4y ago
> I honestly don't think it's possible, and I don't think what you've described is a block shape. You can gain near-expertise in all the fields you mentioned, but true expertise means keeping up with the changes in your relevant area. > If you commit to maintaining an expertise-level of knowledge in all the domains you mentioned, you're going to spend 75% of your life reading instead of doing. I'm more so talking about the fundamental concepts of these topics, such as implementing an OS or database from scratch, rather than the latest trends in the fields. If there is a major trend then I'll look into it. Taken that way, it doesn't take as much time as you might expect, since it's not about learning and using the latest libraries, it's about things that haven't changed for 50 years, like database ACID transactions.

pclmulqdq 4y ago

I think the best professionals I have worked with have been "wedge-shaped" people, not "T-shaped." People who are very familiar with their area, still intimately familiar with surrounding concepts, less familiar with things around that, and so on. Interestingly, I think this kind of person often gets mistaken for being "I"- or "l"-shaped.

hef19898 4y ago
V shaped, or U shaped, people get mistaken for I shapes (man, how I love those management-sized oversimplified concepts, especially those putting people in boxes) when only one side of the U/V is used. Has all kinds of funny side effects, my personal favorite is when people realize, after having classified you as a I, that there is more to you. And then, using the biggest about faces possible, to recognize it, because of course once you are classified as something this cannot change.
- switchbak 4y ago
  I've got a background in Agile consulting (yeah, sorry), frontend work from way back in the day, and low-level systems and optimization work. None of this is factored into my current job, and I've lately been labeled the "database guy" ... when that's one of my newest and not particularly impressive competencies. I still have yet to find a way to manage external perception of my abilities to even a minimal degree. Very draining.
  - hef19898 4y ago
    In my current job, I just gave up on it. I am the "process guy", and lately, due to pressure from IT (of all people, since I am in Supply Chain Operations), the "ERP guy". The latter I did last 10 odd years ago, the former is a side effect of thinking about why things in my domain are the way they are, some lean training and, mainly, being good at operations. Operations being, I'd say, my true core competency from which everything else is fed. No chance to sell that where I am now... I'll see what I do about it come Jan. 100% agree on the draining part.

satvikpendem 4y ago

> I honestly don't think it's possible, and I don't think what you've described is a block shape. You can gain near-expertise in all the fields you mentioned, but true expertise means keeping up with the changes in your relevant area. > If you commit to maintaining an expertise-level of knowledge in all the domains you mentioned, you're going to spend 75% of your life reading instead of doing. I'm more so talking about the fundamental concepts of these topics, such as implementing an OS or database from scratch, rather than the latest trends in the fields. If there is a major trend then I'll look into it. Taken that way, it doesn't take as much time as you might expect, since it's not about learning and using the latest libraries, it's about things that haven't changed for 50 years, like database ACID transactions.