Generalists Are Better Than Specialists

by  on The Programmer
 
Halo Reach, Forklift.

People ask me what is my “specialty” in software development. My specialty, if I have one, is in not having a specialty. I feel like I can contribute on any task.

That answer throws people off. They repeat the question, explaining that everyone is best at something. Managers especially like the idea of specialists because it simplifies the assignment of work: UI tasks go to the UI guys (or gals), SQL tasks go to the SQL guys, middle-tier tasks go to the middle-tier guys, and so on.

Before launching my illustrious career in software development, I worked on a union construction site. Everyone’s job was defined in excruciating detail — what each union member could and couldn’t do.

For example, if we needed to move a pallet from here to there, we had to find a teamster to drive the forklift. There were a few exceptions to that rule, depending on what was sitting on the pallet. In the exceptional cases, we had to find an operator to drive the forklift.

If we couldn’t find a teamster or an operator, the pallet had to sit where it was. We couldn’t move it. It didn’t matter how many other guys were standing around who knew how to drive a forklift.

Since then, I haven’t been a fan of specialization on work teams. It leads to some people having more work than they can possibly do while other people are standing around idle.

I’d make an exception if work demand could be guaranteed to match the available allocation of specialists (i.e., never), but if not, then give me a team of generalists every time.

Thus spoke The Programmer.

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High Dropout Rates for STEM Majors is NOT a Problem

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The University of Colorado has a $4.3 million grant to research the “problem” of 40 to 60 percent attrition rate among STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) majors.

Someone is missing an obvious point here, which is that there should be a large dropout rate for STEM majors. Incompetent technologists and engineers create disasters.

The music department, the English department, the philosophy department, etc., etc., can graduate their incompetent students without worrying that they’re going to build a collapsing bridge, blow up a space shuttle, disintegrate a Mars orbiter — you get the idea . . .

Granville Bridge

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Thousand Oaks

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“Do you know how to get there?”

“No. Did you bring the map?”

“No.”

“Didn’t you say before we left that you’d printed a map?”

“I said I printed it but I didn’t say I was going to bring it along.”

“Oh . . . well, we can call when we get out there. I know how to get to Thousand Oaks, I just don’t remember how to get to their house.”

“Do you know the offramp from the freeway?”

“Yes.”

“So it can’t be too complicated then. I saw on the map it was just lefts and rights.”

“Uh, isn’t any route to anywhere just lefts and rights?”

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And the time came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom. — Anais Nin

Listen to me for a day . . . an hour! . . . a moment! lest I expire in my terrible wilderness, my lonely silence! O God, is there no one to listen? — Seneca, 4 BC

Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, “I will try again tomorrow.” — Mary Anne Radmacher

Aside

A good outcome is not the same as a good decision.