certified jack-of-all-trades t-shirt from mediumblack.ca

The label “jack-of-all-trades but master of none” is normally meant to be derogatory, implying that the labelee lacks the focus to really dive into a subject and master it. But, when your online shopping application is on the fritz and you’re losing orders by the hundreds as each hour passes, it’s the jack-of-all-trades who not only knows how the application’s code works but can also do low-level UNIX debugging of your web server processes, analyze your RDBMS’s configuration for potential performance bottlenecks, and check your network’s router configuration for hard-to-find problems. And, more important, after finding the problem, the jack-of-all-trades can quickly make architecture and design decisions, implement code fixes, and deploy a new fixed system to production.

Extrait tiré de “The Passionate Programmer“

Extrait tiré de “The Passionate Programmer“, lecture en cours qui est assez intéressante :

In our culture, there’s something sacred about following the advice of your parents. It’s seen as a child’s duty and ranks up there with doing one’s religious duty as The Right Thing to do. Books, movies, and television plots are hinged on the parents’ wisdom as a moral. But for careers in our industry, this moral is wrong.

Your parents would rather you be OK than have a remarkable career at the cost of great personal risk. More than any other third party you might look to, your parents are going to give you fear-driven advice. Fear-driven advice is geared toward not losing. Thinking about not losing is not the way to win! Winners take risks. They think about where they want to go—not where the rest of the pack is. Fear- driven career planning is more likely to land you in a cubicle farm for the rest of your life than on the path to greatness. Sure, it’s safe, but it’s no fun.

A generation ago, fun wasn’t a deciding factor when we talked about career choices. Jobs aren’t supposed to be fun. They’re supposed to bring home the bacon. Fun is what you do on your off days. Fun happens in the evenings and weekends. But if your job isn’t fun, as we’ve come to realize, you don’t do a fantastic job at it. It’s not so much that things are different now, but our cultural understanding of what it means to work has shifted for the better. More of us under- stand that passion leads to excellence. And without fun, there’s un- likely to be any passion in a software job.