Over specialization is for insects
Over-specialization is the curse of our profession
31–40 of 57 posts
Re: Over-specialization is the curse of our profession
#32Over specialization is for insects
Re: Over-specialization is the curse of our profession
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
[deleted]
Huh? I think you completely misunderstood the sentiment in my post. I'm saying that not all software as made by a group of front end engineers and a group of backend engineers - that structure is rather specific for web apps, and the occasial internet-heavy mobile app. If you write software for cars, rockets, printers, cell phones, game consoles, or ATMs, these distinctions hardly apply. To rant about how everybody's…
Thanks for clarifying.
Re: Over-specialization is the curse of our profession
#34Good luck being a decent front-end and a decent back-end developer. Besides their different nature. The volume and amount of knowledge is too much to be able to do both at a decent level unless you sacrifice your personal life or you are some sort of super talented nerd. If you dedicate 24 hours a day to both, there will always be someone who will dedicate theirs to only one. You can't beat that competition and it is…
Nonsense. You just need to have a huge amount of experience which can be gained which takes time.
Re: Over-specialization is the curse of our profession
#35Well, I'll be the devil's advocate. What about Adam Smith? He noted that division of labor in a factory will increase its productivity and make the workers much more effective. While a software company is not entirely comparable to a factory, why does the same principle not apply? Devs who can concentrate on one part of the stack can become experts in that area, increasing their productivity--and consequently increas…
It's true that specialization is good for company, but you have to have right employees for that to work. If forced overspecialization makes your developers bored, they will be less effective at work, thus diminishing the effect of specialization. In addition, your best people will leave out of boredom, or require much better compensation to stay. Luckily for software developers, right now we have a choice to change jobs, and don't have to put up with things that people in most other professions have to.
Re: Over-specialization is the curse of our profession
#36That sounds totally wrong. As others have pointed out, specialization is the main ingredient in successful division of labor.
Read my variant at http://shezi.posterous.com/over-specialization-is-the-curse-...
Re: Over-specialization is the curse of our profession
#37Well, I'll be the devil's advocate. What about Adam Smith? He noted that division of labor in a factory will increase its productivity and make the workers much more effective. While a software company is not entirely comparable to a factory, why does the same principle not apply? Devs who can concentrate on one part of the stack can become experts in that area, increasing their productivity--and consequently increas…
You should read about the Toyota production process which showed that for more complex operations that was not the case.
Re: Over-specialization is the curse of our profession
#38That sounds totally wrong. As others have pointed out, specialization is the main ingredient in successful division of labor. Read my variant at http://shezi.posterous.com/over-specialization-is-the-curse-...
I'd say your variant doesn't work because there's a hierarchical relationship between white-collar and blue-collar workers (one is hired by the other). This is not true for frontend vs. backend engineering in my experience. They are supposedly equal peers.
Re: Over-specialization is the curse of our profession
#39This is really interesting. It makes a nice template when the subjects are different but the sentiment is the same. For example: * I'm sick of the distinction between developers and operators. The developers think they're hot shit because they solve the big problems. They know how to scale. They look down on operators who are only solving trivial problems. Developers build the real things. They don't have time to lea…
nice point. I first read the article as:
I'm sick of the distinction between Surgeons and physicians. The surgeons think they're hot shit because they solve the big problems. They know how to cut. They look down on physicians who never get their hands dirty and don't know how the body is put together. They get up in the middle of the night to save lives, and sacrifice their own to make this happen.
The Physicians think they're hot shit because they're the closest to the patient. They are masters of social interaction. They look down on surgeons who think that the answer to everything is to cut. Surgery should be a last resort, not a first.
Over-specialization is the curse of our profession. Stratification breeds condescension. bla bla
Re: Over-specialization is the curse of our profession
#40I disagree too.
I've tried many a time over the years to do good front-end work (especially where web apps are concerned), and I've concluded that I suck at it. Really. The things I find appealing are entirely orthogonal to the rest of the world, especially that cool school of UX engineers. I'm generally content with synchronous http requests, and adding Ajax is always an afterthought.
As a result, I stopped making crap websites for people. I started making nice backends, and who doesn't love a nice backend(?).
Everyone (especially me) is a lot happier when I'm not breaking the look and feel of a site/app/application/product, and I'm a lot happier when I don't have to care how it looks. I'll provide an API, and some other person can make it look good. That's the way the world works.
Asking everyone to be a full-stack engineer is a nice pipe dream, but consider the same in other professions. You'd be asking neurosurgeons to know the same level of detail as dermatologists, and vice versa. You'd be asking a Professor of Particle Physics to understand tertiary protein folding (as his biological counterpart might).
There is no such thing as "overspecialisation", only oversimplification of the job at hand.