in reply to A muse on Talent

Ok, I'll start the ball rolling. I think you need to distinquish between types of coding skills. Separate "artistic", and "technical" skills. Some people have a very good knack for modeling a problem into a form that can be coded, and do it beautifully. While others are very good at the technical details of actually writing the code, in the most efficient and cross-platform-compatible manner.

It is sort of like the "story-problem" wall that divides good mathematicians from auditing clerks. Some people are very good with numbers, but have a hard time putting a real world problem into a mathematical equation.

So when someone gets to the point, where they can produce excellent models, AND can write excellent technical code to implement the model.... you have a talented individual. (Of course he may not be able to tie his own shoe's. :-) ).

I think you will see more "talented teams" than talented individuals, because there probably is a left-right brain symmetry thing going on here, and normally an individual will not excel at both.

Of course chemistry can help...... get high and do some ingeneous modelling, and the next day, drink coffee and code. :-)

I'm not really a human, but I play one on earth. flash japh

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Re^2: A muse on Talent
by radiantmatrix (Parson) on Apr 13, 2006 at 14:59 UTC

    Of course he may not be able to tie his own shoe's

    Or use apostrophes correctly. *ducks*

    Seriously, though, that's an excellent point in any field: the truly great at something often tend to have a form of hyper-focus that seems to preclude them from acquiring skills seen as non-essential to their chosen focus. I think that's where the stereotype of the "socially-inept geek" comes from; many geeks are so focused on improving skills within their geekdom that social skills are neglected as "unimportant".

    I figure that's why it's so rare for really tallented developers and the like to make it into management.

    <-radiant.matrix->
    A collection of thoughts and links from the minds of geeks
    The Code that can be seen is not the true Code
    I haven't found a problem yet that can't be solved by a well-placed trebuchet
[reply]

      Not that I am disagreeing with the basic point, but the phrase "make it into management" pre-supposes that their goal is to do so. There is an assumption I've noticed among the 'corporate ladder' minded people to assume that everyone should want to become managers. If you aren't interested in being 'promoted' to manager you lack drive or ambition.

      It defines 'success' as 'being a manager'.

      I define 'success' as being the best at what I do while doing the job I am most happy doing and earning enough to make a reasonable living.

[reply]

        the phrase "make it into management" pre-supposes that their goal is to do so.

        Not really. It just means that they don't end up there. It's like saying "that rain doesn't look like it will make it to my town" -- the rain has no goals. FWIW, I agree that part of the reason that "geeky" people don't make it into management is that many of them find it undesirable; they hyper-focus of which I speak is part of the reason for that as well.

        No value judgements, just an observation.

        <–radiant.matrix–>
        A collection of thoughts and links from the minds of geeks
        The Code that can be seen is not the true Code
        I haven't found a problem yet that can't be solved by a well-placed trebuchet
[reply]
      Yeah, I was thinking about the best "hyper-view" advice I've ever seen, and I've solved countless problems with it.

      It was back when I was studying physics and the common encountered duality problem, like the wave-particle duality. Anyways, some great physicist( probably Feynman or Einstein) was asked a question, that given 2 opposing, yet equally valid theories, which one was correct. He replied 'both'. His point being that when you encounter such inconsistencies, it almost always means that you are overlooking a solution, that allows both views to be considered correct. It reminds me of the recent XY-problem node.

      The best physics solution(in my limited experience) which incorporated this, and I still boggle my mind when I contemplate it, is the D'Alembertian (my spelling my be off ). It's a 4-dimensional equation which represents all 4 of Maxwell's equations in a single 4-dimensional operator statement, of the form 'del'(phi)= theta. IIRC

      The jist of the whole thing is that we are commonly taught that the electric and magnetic are different entities. But the equation shows that they are the same stuff, just viewed from a different space-time perspective. Thinking about it is about all I need to start drifting off into never-never land. :-)

      I'm not really a human, but I play one on earth. flash japh
[reply]

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