Breaking Down Silos In Technology
I’m writing that story because I am fed up to see this generalized narrow mindset that put a drag on innovation in technology by tribalism cultist.
One situation that illustrate the situation perfectly, two years ago I was attending a conference on artificial intelligence in Montreal, there I meet some people I meet previously into a blockchain meetup, my interlocutor ask me “Bruno what are you doing here I was thinking you are into blockchain”, puzzled I answer I’m into technology as a whole, blockchain, AI, VR, quantum computing, etc… I don’t paint my self into a corner, to see those kind of tribalism mindset at play was quite a weird experience.
One great example about the role of fallibility in technology is the story of the first compiler writing by Grace Hopper, commonly referred to as “the (grand)mother of COBOL”.
In 1949, Hopper became an employee of the Eckert–Mauchly Computer Corporation as a senior mathematician and joined the team developing the UNIVAC I.[18] When she recommended that a new programming language be developed using entirely English words, she “was told very quickly that [she] couldn’t do this because computers didn’t understand English.” This idea was not accepted for 3 years, and she published her first paper on the subject, compilers, in 1952. In the early 1950s, the company was taken over by the Remington Rand corporation, and it was while she was working for them that her original compiler work was done. The compiler was known as the A compiler and its first version was A-0.
In 1952 she had an operational compiler. “Nobody believed that,” she said. “I had a running compiler and nobody would touch it. They told me computers could only do arithmetic.”
On the same vein I throw a jab to all engineer that foolishly think that woman cannot be good engineer,… please stop being stupid !
I got a problem with we are first… expression as a first class citizen.
Often I see the expression we are AI first, we are Mobile first, we are API first, we are Blockchain first etc… That by far the worst marketing ever, is not about the technology but about how you provide value with the technology, Steve Job was 100% spot on when he unveils the Think Different campaign in 1997.
To modernize is speech, I would say is not about private blockchain is better then public blockchain, is not about my AI agent is better trained then yours which is a lie anyway. Is all about the value you bring to the table, is nothing more sad to see a guys wearing a hoodies acting like a wannabe golden boy .
Language is about culture, culture is richness.
I’m from Quebec, the only one French speaking place in America representing ~2.3% of the North America population with 1.8% of global GDP. We love our culture and is important to protect it to stay authentic to our uniqueness, protecting your culture is one thing, isolate your self inside your culture it’s just really bad and sad.
Before the “Révolution tranquille” , the education system in place was managed by the catholic church, back then French Quebecers was learning two languages, the first language was French, and the second language was Latin. What happen after the revolution was the world globalization of the economy, many French worker became unemployable for trade, and sadly that was the road of the broken dream for many Quebecers.
About programming language often we see some folk fall in love with their language of choice, it could be Java, C++,Python, C#,.net etc… It’s cool but like for Quebecers don’t isolate yourself inside a tribalism mentality, nobody speak Latin anymore in Quebec and if you only speak French your job opportunity is greatly diminished.
Like the title say language is about culture, culture is about richness, diversity and versatility is the key for employability. One thing that bug me a lot is the poor sale men argument that goes like that, “we chose that x language because we do have x millions programmer that know this x language”, the reality the only thing that matter is to chose the right language for is specific application. I would highly suggest reader to read Punctuated equilibrium in the large-scale evolution of programming languages to understand the evolution of paradigm shift in programming language.
Expert Generalist
Is the greatest time in history to be a expert-generalist by the fact all the information that was reserved for the intellectual elite are now accessible via the world wide web. Being a expert-generalist is quite a quantum walks by learning new field in discrete-time for applying this knowledge in continuous time to outburst the creation flow trough superposition.
Orit Gadiesh, chairman of Bain & Co, who coined the term, describes the expert-generalist as:
“Someone who has the ability and curiosity to master and collect expertise in many different disciplines, industries, skills, capabilities, countries, and topics.”
The concept is commonly represented by this model of the “T-shaped individual”
My personal hack to be a expert-generalist is to rotate my focus on different subject within a narrowing down feed back loop process. One way I do that is by subscribing to many different group on Facebook and Meetup, the other way is by following specialized leader into sub field on Twitter, LinkedIn and Medium, I don't use much Reddit, is too noisy.
When I start studying a specific field like finance, technology, energy etc…I always start by learning the history of the specific field evolution and about influential leader in specific field that did mark history by their contribution. When you start understanding how thing work and people behavior into specific field it simplify your adaptation journey to their culture and then you feel richness.
Some time when subject is more complex like quantum computing I put my self into a immersive states for long period of time doing just that. When I deep dive into quantum computing it took me 3 month to have a good grasp of what going on and have a clear picture of what lied ahead for quantum computer future.
Specialized vs Generalist
That not a debate, I did work 10 years into construction (brick laying), the job was role based (foreman, bricklayer, helper) and you need to work as a team. A good brick layer don’t necessarily translate to be a good block layer, usually the best at both are the one that being helper (Expert-generalist) for a long time period because when you are the helper you are the one that repair mistake with the Jack Hammer destroying wall to rebuild it, trust me is not fun. The job of the helper is to build the scaffolds, do the mace preparation, check for security, organize the workflow for production, by the fact helpers see the big picture is better placed to see what could go wrong versus the brick layer (Specialized-expert).
Let share a real story, one days I was working with a new brick company, witting the crew one of the brick layer was da bomb, putting brick on the wall at record speed, it was truly difficult for helper to follow is speed. By the fact it was such da bomb it was a bit cocky too and make often the statement that it’s stay into helper position for only 2 weeks,(the general standard is two years). Two week later we do wall of block inside a multi level condo garage, he was terrible at it, one of the worst I see into the past 10 years.
Brick are light (frontend), block are heavy (backend), what happen when those guys doesn't has any experience with heavy lifting, they lack muscle on their shape so they are terrible at doing wall of blocks. Two month later he did receive a promotion and became foreman, the first week it did cost the company $10k by building wall of block without second check is plan assuming the rest of the door will be placed with the same equal distance of the first door, five doors later he did check his plan… the worst part of the story I did tell him to check is plan on a constant basis, but hey is a specialized-expert, I’m just a helper…
Conclusion
I did post this article for having more specialized-expert working with expert-generalist as a team. Software is about managing complexity, I’m use to say that all the knowledge we have is just representing a tiny drop into the ocean.
