Passionate generalist conquering the web one project at a time. Whether authoring libraries for node, JS, PHP, or Rust, I am always on the lookout for better solutions to common problems.
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USA
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Lead Developer & Co-founder at corpscrypt, CTO at REtech
About the argument that you can't be an expert in everything:
This is not a valid point at all. Neuroscience has a completely different view on that. Not only have we not encountered that a brain would ever be "full", we also know that learning several natural languages makes us better at each of them. Transferring that principle to coding - and I can confirm that from personal experience - the more you learn about the backend or databases, the better suited your front-end code will be.
Of course it will take the generalist longer to call themselves an expert, but ultimately it will be the better programmer.
And while automated solutions referenced in this article make our lives easier, there is no reason to believe that a person cannot handle these things "manually" as the knowledge doesn't magically interfere with other topics you learn.
This argument is always made by the same kind of gatekeepers that suggest not to roll your own solutions: they either try to justify why they can't "do it all" themselves or want to protect their particular expertise.
I agree one can surely be an expert in more than one thing. But it's often not possible in a limited time frame. As you mentioned this blog exactly aims against the gate keeper cause they often make the argument that unless you can't be a super good, it's not worth it.
Passionate generalist conquering the web one project at a time. Whether authoring libraries for node, JS, PHP, or Rust, I am always on the lookout for better solutions to common problems.
Location
USA
Work
Lead Developer & Co-founder at corpscrypt, CTO at REtech
Yes, I didn't interpret this post as being gatekeeping. On the contrary, I comment you for your position. Just wanted to input my distaste for the contemporary view on the topic, which you mentioned as well.
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About the argument that you can't be an expert in everything:
This is not a valid point at all. Neuroscience has a completely different view on that. Not only have we not encountered that a brain would ever be "full", we also know that learning several natural languages makes us better at each of them. Transferring that principle to coding - and I can confirm that from personal experience - the more you learn about the backend or databases, the better suited your front-end code will be.
Of course it will take the generalist longer to call themselves an expert, but ultimately it will be the better programmer.
And while automated solutions referenced in this article make our lives easier, there is no reason to believe that a person cannot handle these things "manually" as the knowledge doesn't magically interfere with other topics you learn.
This argument is always made by the same kind of gatekeepers that suggest not to roll your own solutions: they either try to justify why they can't "do it all" themselves or want to protect their particular expertise.
I agree one can surely be an expert in more than one thing. But it's often not possible in a limited time frame. As you mentioned this blog exactly aims against the gate keeper cause they often make the argument that unless you can't be a super good, it's not worth it.
Yes, I didn't interpret this post as being gatekeeping. On the contrary, I comment you for your position. Just wanted to input my distaste for the contemporary view on the topic, which you mentioned as well.