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Discussion on: Quick Thought: Don't Be A Generalist, Stay Focused

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stereoplegic profile image
Mike Bybee • Edited

Here's what I've learned:

"Jack of all trades, master of none" doesn't have to be the case. It's entirely possible to know a wide range of technologies and specialize in multiple; however, you need to make sure you actually understand to some reasonable extent what you're focusing on at the time before falling down other rabbit holes.

I wouldn't necessarily push for specialization early on, but do pick a topic to learn and stick with it, applying it to make sure it's sticking, before moving on to another.

And more importantly, make sure you have a solid understanding of the language itself before getting too bogged down in a framework or library. For example, there's a reason people are worried about React becoming the new jQuery, because there are a lot of devs jumping into it without a solid understanding of JS first, just as there were plenty of great jQuery devs back in the day who couldn't write vanilla JS to save their lives. This is why I consider You Don't Know JS required reading for any JS dev.

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mjcapecci profile image
Michael Capecci

Great points. It's critical to get up to speed in how to properly use a language before venturing into any of its frameworks. Like you said, I've seen a few cases already where I suspect people rushed into learning how to build apps with React before gaining mission-critical skills in JS.

I also agree that once you've gained a high level of proficiency in a certain stack, that you can move on to specializing in other technologies as well. I suppose the key is simply not to rush, and to make sure that we are learning stuff deeply before diving into something else.