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Discussion on: Generalist vs Specialist Developers: Theory and practice

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katsanos_george profile image
George Katsanos • Edited

I guess part of the answer to "How can you be great at 3 different domains (frontend web, backend web and mobile) and have a life outside that room at the same time :D ?" is embedded in the question :) There's plenty of developers for example in the ecosystem where I live who pretty much have no life other than their work.

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rhymes profile image
rhymes • Edited

There's plenty of developers for example in the ecosystem where I live who pretty much have no life other than their work.

That's the thing. It all comes down to choice. I'm 100% sure that I would know more as a software developer if I were to have no other interests or have no social life.

BUT

Would I be a better or more effective software developer? That I don't know and I would probably argue that maybe not. Yeah, I might finally learn everything about Kubernetes and Rust and this and that instead of postponing but... then? Do I get life points?

I think that sometime we forget that in order to be more effective professionals we need to fulfill all aspects of the person that contains such professional. I think there's value in total committment but we're not robots, there's a lot of value in being a functional human being with social connections that has an appreciation (and maybe not absolute mastery) of their job. If I were in the life saving business I would probably have a different opinion, but I'm not.

I have done the total committment thing. I was miserable, in a non english speaking foreign country (and english is not my first language, bonus points for me :D) and my only interactions for the first few months were with colleagues I saw too much because of the insane hours and the owners of the stores around the office. I badly needed people to talk something other than Ruby on Rails to. This doesn't mean it wouldn't work for other people, I'm talking about me. I made a choice after working for early stage startups that led me to me being a freelancer and being ok with the fact that I'll never know everything about everything.

Looking back I wouldn't do it again. We think we're different from people that have other types of jobs but that ain't true.

I'm still yet to see an old person on their death bed saying "I wish I memorized the entire Kubernetes manual by memory instead of spending time with my friends when I got the chance".

(ps. you can do both for a while, but that breaks my story telling so we won't consider that :P)