From Mike Clark's blog, I learned about a number of TED Talks. As a fan of Malcom Gladwell, I was drawn to What we can learn from spaghetti sauce. In this talk, he talks about the research that Howard Moskowitz did for spaghetti sauce and how it changed the food industry forever. Here's a couple of quotes I wrote down:
"When we pursue universal principles in food, we aren't just making an error, we are actually doing ourselves a massive disservice."
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"The difference between coffee at 60 (% satisfied) and coffee at 78 is the difference between coffee that makes you wince and coffee that makes you deliriously happy."
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In embracing the diversity of human beings, we will find a sure way to true happiness.
Can this thinking be applied to web frameworks as well? What if it's not about choosing the best framework for your type of application? What if it's all personality related?
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DHH in Years of irrelevance:
Programming platform experience is like knowing your way around the kitchen. Where are the knives, what size plates do we have, and what spices are available. It's very useful for getting things done without having to search high and low for every little thing. But it's also an asset with a cut-off point of diminished returns. Once you have a reasonably good idea where things are, it's no longer the bottleneck in your culinary performance.
Like chefs, like programmers. Peopleware quotes a study that six months seemed to be the cut-off point for programmers. Once they had six months under their belt, the platform knowledge was no longer the bottleneck in their abilities.
That sounds about right to me.
I have to agree. I also think that total years of experience in the software industry plays a huge part in an engineer's knowledge.
However, that's not always true either.
I interviewed a PhD this week that had an incredible amount of experience and knowledge, but all his platform knowledge was dated.
Years of Experience in Software + up-to-date platform knowledge = the world is your oyster.
However, that's not always true either.