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Generalists vs specialists – Who has a greater chance of success? (2019)

230 点作者 dcu大约 4 年前

47 条评论

planet-and-halo大约 4 年前
The best thing I ever read on this topic came from biology. In "The Diversity of Life," E.O. Wilson describes how specialist species thrive in stable environments. The stability allows them to evolve "deeply" into a niche and outcompete any species less specialized for that same niche. So if I'm really great at plucking fruit from tall trees, and you suck at it, I win. In unstable environments, however—say all of those trees burn down in a forest fire—it's the generalists that triumph, because they have more options and are therefore more resilient. Of course specialization and generalization are abstract terms. Reality can operate on a spectrum, often a discontinuous one at that. So maybe I'm a finch that's best at poking my long beak into a particular kind of tree, but in a pinch I can also hoover up ants off the ground better than most of the other creatures in my ecosystem. So it goes for humans competing in an economy too.
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Snoozle大约 4 年前
I always feel like these types of posts are too kind to generalists. Maybe that&#x27;s just because I am one and I am falling for the greener grass. It&#x27;s true I&#x27;ve done well in my career, but I&#x27;ve never felt particularly competent. I can do a half assed job as a manager, developer, product owner, and salesman, but I am not any better at those tasks than someone who specializes in doing those things.<p>I could argue that I have a little more career resilience, since some creative editing of my resume gives me the ability to apply for 5-6 different careers, but my resume will be suspiciously lacking in details compared to people who have focused.<p>Generalists are definitely at an advantage when it comes to leadership roles and entrepreneurship, but it doesn&#x27;t do me any good to be good at a role I have no chance to get without networking or a large cash base.<p>I think those who specialize have a more successful career, assuming their specialization doesn&#x27;t die out. If I had spent the last 10 years being a really good C++ programmer instead of doing a little bit of everything, I&#x27;d have a lot of confidence in doing a lot of C++ focused jobs.
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screye大约 4 年前
I am a generalist to the extreme, and I kind of hate it.<p>* For non-job stuff I am a human encyclopedia. Within tech, I am quite resourceful when it comes to the meta, but am never the go-to person for a particular task.<p>* Did MechE -&gt; CS -&gt; ML.... so have a generalists technical education.<p>* I have done meaty projects in all of Vision, NLP, ML for systems, Computational social science, HealthML at production&#x2F;publishable levels.<p>* I am great a public speaker and have been recommended to do go down the MBA rabbit hole by many people. But, I am too well meaning to play office politics.<p>The constant feeling of imposter syndrome despite countless assurances becomes grating after a while. The only exception is cooking, and man does it feel good to KNOW that you are good at something. My greatest phobia in life is to be an &quot;all bark, no bite&quot; sort of person. I find anything and everything exciting, so my affliction seems to be permanent.<p>But, if anyone is in my position; hunker down and get yourself a specialization: a safe space. It will take 2-5 years of full-time work on the exact thing, but then there comes what I presume is a strong sense of competence that you never need to question. After that you have your whole life to generalize. Might be a grass is greener on the other side situation, but my 2 cents.
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korax_nyx大约 4 年前
I&#x27;ve been a generalist all my life, I don&#x27;t think I could be otherwise because I love to learn above all things.<p>That&#x27;s a curse and a blessing at my forties.<p>And I don&#x27;t know who is more successful, but certainly I can tell that my main disadvantage is the constant, crippling imposter syndrome. Because I know some things about many things, but above all, I know how much I don&#x27;t know yet.
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indymike大约 4 年前
It&#x27;s not generalist vs. specialist, it&#x27;s capacity for learning and adaptability that really matters.<p>When things are steady state, learning capacity and adaptability don&#x27;t really matter. You do the same thing, the same way, every day. When change is in play, and it doesn&#x27;t matter if that is technical or organizational, those who can learn faster and change behaviors to meet the change are going to outperform.<p>I once was given a team of interns and newly minted developers. In 90 days, we were able to write an entire new ETL system while the legacy team struggled to just keep their steady-eddie system running. We replaced 10 years of code and a kill and fill system with a fully differential pipeline that reduced load on the upstream system by 98%. Literally from millions of documents to process every night to a few thousand. Why? Our team was hired for capacity to learn and ability to adapt. The old guard was hired for experience and knowledge. Yes, they knew their stuff. The problem was they were not able to deal with change at all. The best part? Most of the team had never even heard of ETL and knew zero SQL.
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benlumen大约 4 年前
Some advice for would-be generalists from my career so far, as a definite generalist in technical services and sales.<p>- Companies <i>really</i> like people who are technically proficient, but who also have good social skills and can hold a room. If you think this might be a limiting factor for you, spend some time out of your comfort zone and work on it. I attribute at least some of my success to working in pubs when I was younger. It seems to me to be at least <i>as</i> important for progression to top roles as raw technical knowledge. High level people are usually people you can get on with.<p>- You have to get comfortable, early, with being honest when you don&#x27;t know. Wear the limits of your knowledge on your sleeve: &quot;I&#x27;m not sure to be honest, I&#x27;ll have to get back to you on that&quot; or even &quot;That&#x27;s not my area to be honest, you&#x27;d have to ask X person&quot; are both absolutely valid answers. I&#x27;ve never felt like anyone has thought less of me for this - on the contrary, people really respect it and much prefer it to being BS&#x27;d. Make sure you do get back to them, though.<p>- Complete Udemy courses in your spare time for the fun of it. Python, UX, Game Development, whatever. They&#x27;re hit and miss, but do it for fun. Do it on a Sunday. You don&#x27;t need a clear goal in mind. Increasing your base level knowledge like this will go a long way in real world settings, and there is a joy in receiving pleasant surprise from specialist colleagues when you&#x27;re able to show an appreciation for their field and what it&#x27;s about.<p>I&#x27;m now bootstrapping my own stuff instead, but I&#x27;ve been offered C-level with equity positions in London at a relatively young age on this path. It&#x27;s not to be sniffed at. There is at least one clear downside, though:<p>- You will not experience the joy of having a deep level of expertise and skill with one specific technology or field, the same satisfaction that specialists and academics feel. I can put a web app together and train a model, but I know that I am not an expert at these things and probably never will be. I don&#x27;t get deep into projects that really get me out of bed in the morning, or that push the bleeding edge of research, and I do wonder what that feels like. Bet it&#x27;s nice.
ozim大约 4 年前
Well T-shaped individuals have greatest chance of success.<p>What rubs me the wrong way is the false dichotomy like one can only be a specialist or a generalist. It is always presented as if for example chess players would not even know how to eat. There was a joke in the &quot;Top Gear&quot; about &quot;Stig&quot; racing driver that would fall to the ground if taken out of a car.<p>There is also much more to it because world is complex. For example I am software developer so for business people I am a specialist. But I am also a &quot;full stack developer&quot; where for my fellow developers I am a generalist. Then I mostly specialize in .NET and Angular.
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BrentOzar大约 4 年前
In an immature market, be a generalist. Be good at switching tools quickly because they&#x27;ll come and go, and be good at the general problem-solving process because you&#x27;ll face a lot of problems with new tools.<p>In a mature market, be a specialist. Be good at one very popular tool, and specifically solving one problem with it, and you&#x27;ll find a ton of companies willing to pay you a lot in order to solve that one particular problem quickly.
fishbone大约 4 年前
Here’s a quote I like:<p>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, analyse a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.<p>— Robert Heinlein, Time Enough for Love[1][2]
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eagsalazar2大约 4 年前
I think this is like asking &quot;which batter will do better, the one who swings low and inside or the one who swings high and outside?&quot;. Ok, I don&#x27;t really follow baseball so maybe the metaphor is broken but my point is - it depends on what the situation requires and there is no way to predict that in advance. For <i>any</i> tendency or trait an individual demonstrates there will be times when that trait results in success or failure.<p>It is silly to generalize about which is &quot;better&quot; or more likely to succeed because an &quot;ecosystem&quot; will <i>by design</i> contain both so that as a whole the ecosystem is robust to a variety of unforeseen situations (or nothing happening).<p>In humans you have people who are specialists or generalists, bold or conservative, jay walkers or rule followers, finicky eaters or people who eat pizza that&#x27;s been on the counter for a week, gamblers or savers, etc, etc. In every case there will be specific examples that make you think &quot;damn I really wish I&#x27;d sunk my life savings into BTC 10 years ago!&quot; but that doesn&#x27;t make you &quot;right&quot; or &quot;wrong&quot; except in hindsight.<p>Humans (and other populations) should be judged on the <i>spectrum</i> of behaviors they exhibit and how that allows them to succeed in the specific distribution of challenges they face. Judging individuals seems pretty pointless, I guess, unless you are judging yourself and feeling unhappy with the specific tendencies genetics and your upbringing have dealt you. Anyway, just an interesting thing to consider.
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bhattisatish大约 4 年前
I am not sure I buy the authors argument. I am not even sure if I am clear about how the author defines a generalist and specialist!!<p>The way the world knowledge is evolving, there is a blurring of what we call specialist and generalist. For e.g. If you are a medical researcher, then knowledge of biology, biochemistry, software development (simulation anyone) and maths is required. Now is this specialisation or being generalist?<p>To me specialists go deeper and solver harder problems. They work on a problem or set of problems in the same space for years together.<p>Generalists span either multiple disciplines and leverage the connections or have an overview of the field and jump between sub knowledge every couple of years.<p>And which is better? It all depends on context!<p>In a space which has higher population of specialist then generalist will be more successful as they will be able to tap into multiple peoples work which a specialist will find harder to do.<p>In case there are many generalists in a given space then specialisation is the way to go as you can take up problems that generalists will never be able to see or solve.<p>For me it&#x27;s all about context.
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systemvoltage大约 4 年前
Someone told me you gotta have a &quot;T shaped&quot; skillset. Well, how else could it be? I&#x27;ve never met any one who is just a straight line deep. Everyone is is an upside down triangle with multiple spikes at the bottom (their specializations) otherwise you couldn&#x27;t have gained the specialized knowledge without learning the general stuff. But that&#x27;s a stretch, let&#x27;s not deduce someone&#x27;s career into a couple of difference shapes. Careers are <i>complex</i> as they evolve sort of in a chaotic system of professional environments.<p>T-shaped is largely a made up concept without any real observations, and it sounds good initially but after contemplation it falls apart. One of those urban-legends that keeps circulating in big corps.
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JackMorgan大约 4 年前
In my limited experience a specialist gets paid more, right up until they don&#x27;t. Specialist areas from the 90s are so rarely used today as to be laughable, TokenRing anyone?<p>Generalists are slightly less compensated, but as long as they keep on top of new areas, they are able to stay relevant and actually stay in the industry. In my case, the VB6 specialists I used to work with still barely make a living with it, but meanwhile I&#x27;ve moved on through VB.NET, C#, and now F#. A deep investment is worthwhile to the industry, but is rarely worthwhile to the developer, and the landscape just changes too fast to make it worthwhile (at least for me).
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RcouF1uZ4gsC大约 4 年前
In mathematics, there is this thing called the “Curse of Dimensionality”.<p>In careers, there is the “Blessing of Dimensionality.” If you can make yourself good along multiples axes, you can carve a niche out for yourself. Maybe you are a top 20% coder. That alone, may be enough to get you a pretty good job. However, if you also have top 20% people skills, suddenly you have opened a very nice niche for yourself and are a very strong candidate for Director of Engineering or above.<p>Instead of obsessing about your weakness is a single dimension and worrying about if you are specialist or generalist, develop another dimension of competence.
jiriknesl大约 4 年前
I doubt, there&#x27;s such a thing as a real generalist, that knows SW development, negotiation, history of Italy, international politics, engine design, ... to the same level of depth.<p>When we speak about successful generalists, they are still quite specialized. They might know some data analysis (maybe limited by Excel and VB macros), some teamwork skills, some marketing&#x2F;sales&#x2F;product ownership knowledge, some competitive intelligence, some understanding of work laws and how to form a company.<p>Such a person would be considered a generalist, but as I see it, such a person still ignores 99% of fields of study.
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awful大约 4 年前
Never bored, I went from basic electronics and microprocessor to troubleshoot mainframes at bit&#x2F;op code level, replacing heads and aligning disks, to admin&#x27;ing new then Silicon Graphics, Sun Unix and VMS and large scale databases, analog and digital research instrumentation (NMR, among others, RF, cryo, even writing minor pulse sequences and HW to control laser excitation of molecules, among others), new then IP networks, IBM Server and NT and automating rollout of thousands clients, email (cc:Mail international) architectures, the early network security configs and proseltyzing, a hospital systems ATM (not money machine, a net arch) mesh network, and later specializing study in computer science&#x2F;information systems and all that, Apache servers, and automating certain new aircraft systems. The magic was being generalist, understanding fundamental concepts. You cannot believe how upset some people, who locked into their narrow fields, became when I was able to move around so easily(? - it was a lot of work though, but it was always a hobby so never a job). Now retired and following&#x2F;studying NMR technology applied to quantum computing to leverage my way into the algorithms, and ESP32. that is how the generalist wins in many ways, in my opinion; leveraging fundementals to do interesting things. But I do find that without the steady back pressure, I tend to wander a bit much into the wilds.
runawaybottle大约 4 年前
Specialization only matters if the specialization is valued for top quality. A diner can make me a good enough burger, but there are places I’ll go to for a top quality burger.<p>In software development, business mostly wants good enough. The bulk of the products being developed don’t value top quality, so it’s becoming increasingly pointless to invest into a specialty.<p>Things can change of course.
christiansakai大约 4 年前
I love being a generalist. I don&#x27;t care about success.
killjoywashere大约 4 年前
I think it&#x27;s worth keeping in mind that specialization is in the eye of the beholder. Among physicians, I&#x27;m a specialist (a pathologist). In the pathology community I&#x27;m a generalist (I don&#x27;t have subspecialty training), but I&#x27;m also quite specialized in that I mainly work in AI (thanks to an undergrad in physics and a lot of time spent playing with computers). AI turns out to be something few physicians of any type have the mathematical training for because the prerequisites for medical school stop at integral calculus.
cntainer大约 4 年前
Following most of the comments I&#x27;ve read I fall in the generalist population.<p>But I&#x27;m trying to have a more nuanced perspective. My goal is to be a specialist in a couple of practices less likely to change not in the tools that are more likely to change.<p>For example, as a developer I would want to become a specialist in Object Oriented Design, not in Java&#x2F;PHP&#x2F;etc. I might not understand all the nooks and crannies of Java and the JVM but I understand enough to get the work done in 90-95% of cases and I&#x27;m comfortable enough to get my hands dirty with the official documentation in order to deliver good work in the rest 10% of cases. Yes it&#x27;s quite probable that a Java specialist will be more effective than me in those 10%, but having a wider breadth of knowledge makes up for it in other areas of the project.<p>In my experience I can cover most of my lack of knowledge in a certain tool much quicker if I already have previous experience in switching tools. I&#x27;m becoming better in understanding what I can take and apply from my less-specialized expertise and what I need to learn quickly in order to minimize the impact of my &quot;generalism&quot;.<p>Another interesting thing I noticed is a cross-pollination effect, I can bring experience from other tools and provide a completely fresh perspective in solving problems compared to specialists that otherwise wouldn&#x27;t have even considered some of the new possibilities.
gdubs大约 4 年前
“Success” can be subjective. To some, it means being the richest, or the best in your field. To others, it’s the pursuit of knowledge and experience itself.<p>IMHO, there’s far too much compartmentalization in today’s world, and we’re lacking Carl Sagan types who can see threads running through many different fields.<p>But there are fields where generalists can thrive. Take filmmaking. By nature, it involves story, sound, cinematography, etc. Even just a good story requires some life experience, or at least exposure to a wide range of subjects.<p>You have to ask whether being the 1% elite of your field is your goal. You can still be much better than average, and pursue a wide variety of interests. Some see those other interests as distractions. But they can wind up being the thing that distinguishes you from everyone else in your field - or gives you the moment of insight that comes from left field.<p>Einstein didn’t give up the violin and say, “what’s the point?” or, “I need to focus 100% on science.” He drew on it, and it gave his life some balance. Perhaps some of his insights came as a result of that diversion.
pdimitar大约 4 年前
Obviously the world and the economy are big enough for both but at least in terms of programming, I&#x27;ve observed the following:<p>The more senior programmer I become (both in age and skills), the less I can actually focus on a single programming task. I am expected to know <i>a metric ton</i> of tooling for 2000 separate purposes. So I learned to quickly master tools just good enough. Same goes for frameworks (which has been to the detriment of the projects sometimes, sadly; there are things you cannot afford to half-ass).<p>Basically, as a tech generalist and a polyglot, my job is to assemble bricks into walls into houses. Rarely do I get to write the perfect brick or glue. I am much more a plumber and architectural worker than anything else.<p>So IMO if you are not in a single company for most of your career and want to be competitive, you have to be a generalist.
EricE大约 4 年前
Specialization vs. generalization isn’t what has driven my success, but my overall ability to adapt. At times in my professional life I have been a very narrow specialist - domain expert even. At other times I have greatly benefited from having more wider knowledge of multiple areas and being able to synthesize among them. It just depends.<p>The biggest issue I have had with people is when they get to a point where they don’t feel they have to learn anything new - “I shouldn’t have to at this point”. Always makes me laugh! You should never stop learning - I’ve seen that attitude pigeonhole and submarine otherwise smart people. If you want to be miserable, just let that mindset start to creep in and dominate your thought processes :&#x2F;
bsldld大约 4 年前
I don&#x27;t know where I read this, but few years ago someone was advising students on what they should do to survive professionally. And the answer he gave was:<p>Master one field, and that advise would have been enough for past generations. But for the present and coming generations the answer is, master one field but have at least some knowledge of other(2-3) fields that you think(from your general knowledge) are important for humanity; and don&#x27;t let go of your hobby. This is a not so clear-cut answer because that is the reality we live in, it is a very dynamic and competitive world!<p>So, in today&#x27;s world it does not help to either be a generalist or a specialist. The ethos should be &quot;Jack of all trades, but master of one&quot;
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moiz_ahmed大约 4 年前
&quot;Try to learn something about everything and everything about something.&quot; -Thomas Huxley
tunnuz大约 4 年前
I found this reading very interesting <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.amazon.com&#x2F;Range-Generalists-Triumph-Specialized-World&#x2F;dp&#x2F;0735214484" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.amazon.com&#x2F;Range-Generalists-Triumph-Specialized...</a>
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anarticle大约 4 年前
&quot;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, analyse a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.&quot; -- Robert Heinlein<p>Some things do come at the cost of others, but I think you&#x27;ll be surprised how many proficiencies you can come up with in a life well lived.
keiferski大约 4 年前
When this question comes up, I always think of Leonardo da Vinci. The man was perhaps the least focused genius in history and it&#x27;s a wonder he got <i>anything</i> done at all. He spent years experimenting with science, engineering, new painting techniques, and various other things that went nowhere.<p>Yet, today he&#x27;s probably one of the top five most successful artists of all time, largely for a handful of paintings.<p>So, when it comes to the arts, it seems like you can do both. Be a generalist, but make at least one work that is a masterpiece.
jhoechtl大约 4 年前
In a devastated economy the generalist, in a highly functional economy the specilist.<p>Now please come up with a measure if an economy is elaborated and functional.
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K0nserv大约 4 年前
I wrote a blog bost[0] about the idea of The Stalactite Developer about a year ago. I like this metaphor better than T shaped and I have applied it effectively throughout my career.<p>0: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;hugotunius.se&#x2F;2020&#x2F;01&#x2F;19&#x2F;the-stalactite-developer.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;hugotunius.se&#x2F;2020&#x2F;01&#x2F;19&#x2F;the-stalactite-developer.ht...</a>
pgrddy大约 4 年前
The world problems however needs all the specialists and generalists. And instead of taking generalists too far, a specialist with minimum knowledge and experience in few other contrasting domains is good enough for him to get creative, draw analogies and solve problems.
kristianov大约 4 年前
generalist maximizes the number of successes and specialist maximizes the benefit of one success.
v3nom大约 4 年前
If you are interested in generalists vs specialists debate, also check out this talk <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=3JKVgxpLyzU" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=3JKVgxpLyzU</a>
jokethrowaway大约 4 年前
It depends on your definition of success.<p>In my mind generalists are more likely to do well with people (whether at selling, persuading or romancing), which can be advantageous - unless your definition of success is becoming an hermit.
hvasilev大约 4 年前
Is it possible to do specialism as a day job and generalism as a hobby?
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andagainagain大约 4 年前
This whole thing just sounds like it&#x27;s based in multiple bits of poor logic and improperly used principles.<p>- Don&#x27;t take away data points to find averages you like. When you have a category like &quot;fastest growing successful startups&quot;, I want to know how many you looked at. And no, 45 is not unreasonable. Neither is 40. We&#x27;re dealing with people aged 20-80. But actually, 20 is unlikely because you also put in &quot;successful&quot;, which takes a few years to figure out. So like 25-80, with more at the young-ish end of that spectrum.<p>- &quot;Specialists do not do well as predictors of financial or political trends. Nor are they good at predicting human behavior&quot; is a bad generalization to make on specialists. EVERYONE is bad at predicting human behavior, financial and political trends. EVERYONE. If you think you&#x27;ve found someone who is good at that, I think you&#x27;ve found someone that&#x27;s good at hiding how much they suck at it. Test them, with specific claims, and usually they reveal they&#x27;re just as bad as anyone else.<p>- &quot;Specialists often learn from experience&quot; - of course they do. So do generalists. Also, so do you.<p>- &quot;Inspiration is everywhere&quot;, hey, on that I agree. Inspiration is indeed everywhere.<p>- &quot;What can do you to thrive in such a world?&quot; - The author recommends all sorts of things, most of which are quite silly. Reading books every day? GREAT! Read magazines that cater to different hobbyists? Less useful. Listen to music from another country? I suppose... if you want. Learning about motor cycle racing and polymers? Again, if you want. But it&#x27;s implied that this is somehow beneficial to your career, which it almost never is.<p>I know a bunch of biology, a smattering of physics, plenty of skeptical stuff, a touch of programming, little bits about music and cultures around the world, an enormous number of trivial things. I know those things because of my history, my experiences, and my curiosity. I am no better at predicting human behavior or economic markets than the world leading chess experts. And I&#x27;m no more likely to succeed at making a startup than someone who doesn&#x27;t know about ancient tea and black powder muzzle loaders.
qazpot大约 4 年前
John Lewis Gaddis dicusses this in his &quot;On Grand Strategy&quot; book.<p>He borrows Hedgehog vs Fox from Isiah Berlin
paulpauper大约 4 年前
It is not just generalist vs. specialists, bu alsot having very specific knowledge that helps
godmode2019大约 4 年前
Book recommendation:<p>Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth - by Buckminster Fuller<p>Just the first chapter will blow your mind.
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Foobar8568大约 4 年前
From a recruitment point of view, specialist, from a company POV, generalist.
RHSman2大约 4 年前
Generally speaking, specialists do. But only generalists in specialist areas.
tibiahurried大约 4 年前
Generalists can easily adapt. Adapting is key for survival.
Mave83大约 4 年前
I strongly liky my generalistic knowledge. It often helps me find solutions or ways others can&#x27;t see.<p>However, I do relay on some specialists in my Team to fulfill other demands.<p>For me, a good Team had both.
andi999大约 4 年前
There is no transitive relation called success.
sunstone大约 4 年前
Mr. Musk appears to be half and half.
m000大约 4 年前
What is success?
neonological大约 4 年前
A lot of programmers think of themselves as generalists because they’ve built web apps in several languages and know both front end and backend development.<p>I disagree. These people are just specialists in web dev. The knowledge within web development is diverse and actually easy to learn but it does not make you a generalist.<p>You are a generalist if you have knowledge about different fields within software engineering.<p>So for example, if you’re good at:<p>machine learning and writing compilers,<p>doing operating system development,<p>front end development with react,<p>OpenGL&#x2F;Vulcan development with c++,<p>Database development.<p>then you are a generalist.<p>Generalists are truly rare. specialists in compiler development are also rare. Specialists in web development are abundant. Practically every show HN is some sort of website.
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