these were called jack of all trades?
What Is a Wildcard Person?
181–190 of 278 posts
Re: What Is a Wildcard Person?
#182Beware of this so-called wildcard person, as they are almost always a "tactical tornado"[1]:
> Almost every software development organization has at least one developer who takes tactical programming to the extreme: a tactical tornado. The tactical tornado is a prolific programmer who pumps out code far faster than others but works in a totally tactical fashion. When it comes to implementing a quick feature, nobody gets it done faster than the tactical tornado. In some organizations, management treats tactical tornadoes as heroes. However, tactical tornadoes leave behind a wake of destruction. They are rarely considered heroes by the engineers who must work with their code in the future. Typically, other engineers must clean up the messes left behind by the tactical tornado, which makes it appear that those engineers (who are the real heroes) are making slower progress than the tactical tornado.
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Philosophy-Software-Design-John-Ouste...
Re: What Is a Wildcard Person?
#183I think that's all of us, really. I'm reminded of Heinlein's quote "A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently,…
bit biased towards waging war or being a soldier.
Re: What Is a Wildcard Person?
#184I think that's all of us, really. I'm reminded of Heinlein's quote "A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently,…
Easier said than done. For example, that's what Elon Musk believes he is. He has enormous amounts of money to back his ideas, and then you have seen the results, mostly is just manipulation and other people actually do the things.
he could sure improve on his fashion. all billionaires can
Re: What Is a Wildcard Person?
#185Beware of this so-called wildcard person, as they are almost always a "tactical tornado"[1]: > Almost every software development organization has at least one developer who takes tactical programming to the extreme: a tactical tornado. The tactical tornado is a prolific programmer who pumps out code far faster than others but works in a totally tactical fashion. When it comes to implementing a quick feature, nobody g…
From your description and comparing to the article Tornadoes and Wildcards seem to be totally different things to me. You describe the stereotype of the "Hero Programmer".
Re: What Is a Wildcard Person?
#186Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's an evocative quote, but it's also nonsense. The selection of skills is a bit scattershot, but let's look at some examples: "butchering a hog" takes a year to learn, well, butchery to a professional standard, because someone who can butcher hogs but not cows sounds awfully 'specialised', some places even say that a butchery apprenticeship takes 24 months. (And I personally wouldn't trust an unqualified butcher to…
I think they're talking about butchering a hog at the skill level of a person who grew up near people who owned hogs, ie, definitely a "I did this with somebody at a barbecue a few times" and not "24 months of training". Giving and taking orders likewise doesn't remotely require army training, it just requires growing up around human beings and being part of anything -- theater, bands, church groups, service groups,…
Well, Lazarus Long was supposedly over 2000 years old, so he had the time to learn.
Re: What Is a Wildcard Person?
#187these were called jack of all trades?
Hmm, according to the entomology here, it's an insult? I didn't think so.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/jack_of_all_trades
> Originally a term of praise (competent in many endeavors), today generally used disparagingly, with emphasis on (implied or stated) “master of none”, as in later longer form jack of all trades, master of none.
Also commented: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34159070
Also Jill: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/jill_of_all_trades
Re: What Is a Wildcard Person?
#18817 years ago, there was a popular essay about this sort of person, and the label at the time was "Free Electron": https://randsinrepose.com/archives/free-electron/ Before that, they were known as "generalists", autodidacts, polymaths, etc. The thing is that pretty much any clever person that's easily invested in novel things can become one of these people, so this label isn't reserved for people who are generalists,…
I would love to just be able to "not let myself become one of these people". Unfortunately I can't change how my brain reacts to stimuli (and I've tried).
Re: What Is a Wildcard Person?
#18917 years ago, there was a popular essay about this sort of person, and the label at the time was "Free Electron": https://randsinrepose.com/archives/free-electron/ Before that, they were known as "generalists", autodidacts, polymaths, etc. The thing is that pretty much any clever person that's easily invested in novel things can become one of these people, so this label isn't reserved for people who are generalists,…
> You'll just never make the same kind of money as the person that knows Kubernetes backwards and forwards and not much else. is there a statistics on this?
I laughed when I read this because being a kubernetes expert implicitly means having lots of experience on a wide array of subjects. Cloud services, networking, containers, etc. DevOps is literally one of the most generalist jobs out there.
A better example of a (typically) highly specialized job title might X Developer (where X is any programming language).
Re: What Is a Wildcard Person?
#190Earlier quoted context omitted.
Everyone can self-identify as they like, the real ones in this case are easy to spot just asking them to tell you some stories of absurd problems they solved. They always have a boatload of war stories.
An issue I’ve found is that often these stories don’t tend to be believed. To the untrained ear, they sound like typical BS everyone throws around. Tiny example: I joined a company and a nightly process was data import. The import was starting to take longer than 25 hours, threatening the “daily” aspect, and on the verge of causing logistical problems because of this. The problem had been looming for months and has t…
Haha just leave off the part of the story where it humiliates someone else. Anyway you should take cash over credit any day. Credit can be taken in the most brazen ways by those with more political power in the org and all you can do about it is bloody some noses, not a great reputation builder. You must know that whether people admit it or not, they know who did the lions share and its an invisible card in your back pocket but to exercise it takes tact and stones. An alternative way to frame your story is that your solution was immediately validated by greybeards and effortlessly extended!! ;-)