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Discussion on: Kinds of programmer

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jason_espin profile image
Jason Espin

Great post but I would have to disagree with the levels especially placing Googling, Stackoverflow etc as low competency. Development is constantly evolving and we are often tasked with implementing new things we have never touched. As a Principle Developer I find that this happens to me a lot as I am the person that people go to when things need to be done. Part of being a good developer is being able to source the right information and apply it whilst having an awareness that the information you have found is relevant and correct. I would argue that this actually requires a greater level of competency and understanding that you have given it credit for.

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Kelly Stannard

Yeah, also you never stop needing Google and Stack Overflow since most open source doesn't have good documentation and outsources that work to the wider community.

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conw_y profile image
Jonathan • Edited

Thanks for your feedback.

Yeah perhaps it is a mistake for me to to grade it numerically. Each of those areas can go very very deep.

As you point out, being able to source the right and correct information and apply it is huge, and probably a competitive advantage for many businesses.

Based on your feedback I think I might change it to a bulleted list, or find some other way of indicating that each of these levels is a world unto itself, and that you can (and often are well advised to) go very deep on one level and ignore the others.

In fact, I suppose software/computing itself makes this 'selective ignorance' advantageous, with its 'layers of abstraction'. E.g none of us would be so foolish as to manually manage our own memory; we leave that task to the operating system and its layers of abstraction.