Since there is the notion that software developers also need to know the basics, I'd like to contrast this to a real-world equivalent.
Imagine I have a plumbing problem, and am looking for a decent plumber to take care of it. To get some idea of their knowledge and understanding, I ask them what water does when it goes into the pipe. Regardless of the academic background of the plumber, should their answer relate to the ideal gas law, should they be explaining Poiseuille’s law or would Bernoulli's principle suffice, or are they better of explaining the stochastic effects of thermodynamics as it relates to small polar molecules?
That's not to say that the basics are never helpful, but people tend to get more work done if they apply deferred execution to their learning: if I need to know about thermodynamics, I'll study up on it. Until then I can perfectly do my job by knowing that for these situations a brand X plastic pipe will do and for those situations a brand Y metal pipe will be necessary.
In fact, being able to apply deferred execution (to both learning and problem solving) is a vital skill, if you're to avoid being bogged down in yak stacks. This also very closely relates to being able to solve problems through abstraction, which is an actual basic skill for developers.
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Since there is the notion that software developers also need to know the basics, I'd like to contrast this to a real-world equivalent.
Imagine I have a plumbing problem, and am looking for a decent plumber to take care of it. To get some idea of their knowledge and understanding, I ask them what water does when it goes into the pipe. Regardless of the academic background of the plumber, should their answer relate to the ideal gas law, should they be explaining Poiseuille’s law or would Bernoulli's principle suffice, or are they better of explaining the stochastic effects of thermodynamics as it relates to small polar molecules?
That's not to say that the basics are never helpful, but people tend to get more work done if they apply deferred execution to their learning: if I need to know about thermodynamics, I'll study up on it. Until then I can perfectly do my job by knowing that for these situations a brand X plastic pipe will do and for those situations a brand Y metal pipe will be necessary.
In fact, being able to apply deferred execution (to both learning and problem solving) is a vital skill, if you're to avoid being bogged down in yak stacks. This also very closely relates to being able to solve problems through abstraction, which is an actual basic skill for developers.