Please Do Not Be a One Trick Pony • Hacker News Board

Re: Please Do Not Be a One Trick Pony

#61

Post by codingdave » Wed, Jan 07, 2015, 3:16 PM UTC

raverbashing wrote: post #28

spiralpolitik wrote: post #3

They said that for the mainframe and mini people at the end of the 90s and yet all the people who I know who worked in those areas are still employed, still making good money, and will still be doing so for the foreseeable future. Technology lasts a surprisingly long time and not everybody needs to keep jumping on the new hotness.

It might pay the bills, but you'll work on exactly ZERO new developments. You won't be able to work with Web/Embedded/Mobile. Your developments will probably be "new report at bank" or "fixing new bugs" So, unless you learn other stuff, it might get you the money but it's probably something veery boring (even more boring than your corporate CRUD app)

What is so bad about boring? Boring means low stress, and easy work. As long as your life outside of work is fulfilling, there is nothing wrong with doing a boring job for good money.

Re: Please Do Not Be a One Trick Pony

#62

Post by kyllo » Wed, Jan 07, 2015, 3:18 PM UTC

Xylakant wrote: post #31

raverbashing wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might pay the bills, but you'll work on exactly ZERO new developments. You won't be able to work with Web/Embedded/Mobile. Your developments will probably be "new report at bank" or "fixing new bugs" So, unless you learn other stuff, it might get you the money but it's probably something veery boring (even more boring than your corporate CRUD app)

Most jobs in Web and Mobile are fairly boring. People program Wordpress Templates for a living. Fix bugs on rails installations. Run 400 Servers that run a shop. The next app that displays data from an API. Actually, very few jobs are "exciting" as in "really new development or research that was never done before".

Boring is where the money is, because no one will do the boring work for free.

Re: Please Do Not Be a One Trick Pony

#63

Post by kyllo » Wed, Jan 07, 2015, 3:23 PM UTC

sspiff wrote: post #42

Aardwolf wrote: post #35

I don't think C++ would become obsolete any time soon, right?

People who grok C++ will be able to manage whatever would ever replace it.

Exactly. The Rust team is trying to give C/C++ devs a better, safer, and at least equally performant tool to use. They're not trying to replace one group of people (C/C++ devs) with a different group of people (Rust devs).

The fact that it's also attracting the interests of Ruby and Python devs (who may have found C/C++ scary) is a bonus.

Re: Please Do Not Be a One Trick Pony

#64

Post by toddmorey » Wed, Jan 07, 2015, 3:49 PM UTC

The most important thing is that learning other languages and frameworks really helps expand your perspective. It's fascinating and fun to learn how another framework in a different language solves common problems like security, routing, or UI abstractions.

Any time you see a problem approached from a new angle, it deepens your understanding of that domain. You learn what patterns are common and what tradeoffs are made.

I gueninely believe learning Python or Erlang makes you a better Ruby programmer. You don't have to cross over to reap the benefits.

Re: Please Do Not Be a One Trick Pony

#65

Post by UNIXgod » Wed, Jan 07, 2015, 3:56 PM UTC

JacobAldridge wrote: post #38

This applies in more fields than just programming. I've won a number of clients over the years based on the fact that most of my competitors (business strategy coaching / consulting) are 'one trick ponies'. "How are you different to X?" "My company has IP that addresses all 20 areas of business, and I work as part of a team so I can ship in a specialist if need be. "X is great at following the bouncing ball to give y…

s/marketing plan/engineer/g

Always be yourself. Unless you can be a unicorn. Then always be a unicorn.

Re: Please Do Not Be a One Trick Pony

#66

Post by speeder » Wed, Jan 07, 2015, 4:00 PM UTC

I have to disagree.

As a unemployed person, that see lots of job openings for one trick ponies, I wish I was a one trick pony, I am not, and I am already without my lunch (in the literal sense, I've been eating mostly potatoes for the last weeks, my parents don't have money to buy even chicken daily).

I am mainly a Lua, C and C++ coder.

Most job openings I see are for Java EE specialists, or people that know the entire database stack (ie: Oracle + some server side coding tech)

Or it is for .NET specialists, and so on.

I am willing to work with that stuff, but people want to hire only extremely experienced people in those fields, my years of coding C# for fun to makes games with XNA and RunUO does not count, I don't have a huge stack of Java certifications, and so on.

But the people I know that are coding Java since its existance, and don't know anything else (example, cannot grasp pointers or some other basic concepts that are not used directly in Java) have a job.

I wish I went with that boring route instead... (I know lots of random languages, Lua, C and C++ are my favourite, but I know C#, J2ME, BASIC, MushCODE, Linoleum, PHP, and some others, all because I am curious and learn for the sake of learning).

Re: Please Do Not Be a One Trick Pony

#67

Post by sgrove » Wed, Jan 07, 2015, 4:00 PM UTC

I personally appreciate the knowledge and experience I've had from using different languages, libraries, and implementing different projects (personal and professional). I also think this is pretty sound career advice.

That said, being a professional Clojure developer, I was surprised by Rich Hickey's advice on mastery [0], and think he likely has a point. The happy point is probably the classic 'T' advice - lots of broad experience with different languages, paradigms, etc., with enough deep, deep experience in one or two to be incredible at reasoning and execution.

[0] Could only find this gist - https://gist.github.com/stijlist/bb932fb93e22fe6260b2

Re: Please Do Not Be a One Trick Pony

#68

Post by icebraining » Wed, Jan 07, 2015, 4:03 PM UTC

falcolas wrote: post #51

I would liked to take a moment and laugh at the advice to leave a 10+ year old language in favor of... Another few 10 year old languages. Your time would be better served learning more programming paradigms than languages; the languages are the easy part, knowing how to best solve a problem with that language is the hard part.

Certain languages require you to learn more paradigms; it's hard to write a object-oriented program in pure Prolog.

And I don't see what the age has to do with it; most paradigms are hardly new.

Re: Please Do Not Be a One Trick Pony

#69

Post by Jem » Wed, Jan 07, 2015, 4:03 PM UTC

raverbashing wrote: post #28

spiralpolitik wrote: post #3

They said that for the mainframe and mini people at the end of the 90s and yet all the people who I know who worked in those areas are still employed, still making good money, and will still be doing so for the foreseeable future. Technology lasts a surprisingly long time and not everybody needs to keep jumping on the new hotness.

It might pay the bills, but you'll work on exactly ZERO new developments. You won't be able to work with Web/Embedded/Mobile. Your developments will probably be "new report at bank" or "fixing new bugs" So, unless you learn other stuff, it might get you the money but it's probably something veery boring (even more boring than your corporate CRUD app)

I work with web/mobile. My job is still very boring at least 75% of the time. E-mails, admin, client contact, delegation of jobs to staff I'm responsible for - and that's before we get to the boring parts of the job itself. We can't all be working on brilliantly exciting stuff all the time.

Re: Please Do Not Be a One Trick Pony

#70

Post by speeder » Wed, Jan 07, 2015, 4:04 PM UTC

falcolas wrote: post #49

mrbig4545 wrote: post #15

jack of all trades, master of none. no thanks, i'll stick to being an expert (and getting paid accordingly) in one field, and adjust when needed. you don't get brick layers randomly learning carpet fitting and welding "just incase"

The actual phrase is: A jack of all trades Master of none Is still better Than a master of one Worth keeping in mind when looking for a metaphor.

I think people ignore the second part, because it is a lie. (see my post here commenting about my situation)