"Jack of all trades" or "Master of one"?

Question

Nowadays, alot of companies require of their programmers to be knowledgable in more than one language. Is this really ideal? Is it better to have fewer developers who are fairly good in multiple languages, or should there be more developers who are "masters" of one language?

Which is best according to you?

Answer 1

Actually, you don't have to be master of multiple languages.
For example, I'm a PHP web developer and sometimes I need to work with javascript. I should know it, but I'm not master of it.

Answer 2

I'm not sure, but once I saw Hatsy Rei commenting on Donald Cat's thread although one is blocked by another (I don't remember who blocked whom). So I think blocking system in SL doesn't work from both sides.

Answer 3

after seeing "5+, 3+ years" requirements I think:
how am I supposed to be getting these "years of experience" if nearly every company wants "experienced" employees???

old joke: we need 25 year old with 45 years of experience)) (not funny actually)

Answer 4

Offtopic #2
I always thought blocking would work for both sides? o_O

Answer 5

@Illusive man, that is another issue but you are right. They rarely say it but usually they mean years of experience building a portfolio if you have not worked all those years in a company. Junior positions are also very rare these days, and recent CS graduates are not integrated in the job market as well as they should be. So there are plenty of unfilled positions because of that.

Answer 6

Many times the requirements are set a bit...... interestingly. That said, they mostly exist to show you what buzz words to emphasize in your cover letter & synopsis of resume (as long as you're able to approximate the requirements, that is!)

As to the thrust: you never work with just one language. Even my first research assistant job (Fortran programming for nuclear data analysis) involved quite a bit of VMS command line work, and learning Make to incorporate my work into the larger tool.

My current project is mostly Java, but I also need to know: xml, maven, subversion, & bash syntax as well. That's not even considering the fact that the best way to test my coordinate transforms requires user of a python package built by the solar observing community...

Thankfully, the more experience you have with these tools, the more you see the similarities do you can pick up new ones easier (note the relative nature of that statement... jsf is currently kicking me in the shins).

Answer 7

@luka, all I can say is good luck to that bankX finding the right candidate. People wonder why there are so many unfilled jobs in the IT sector...this is one of the reasons.

Answer 8

@Andrew, Breaking news: he read it and replied too!!

Answer 9

@Andrew
Of course. Nobody should ever forget WWII. Don't think you can provoke me with words like these.

Answer 10

This is not the right place for political discussions, but I think it's okay to add some knowledge for the ppl asking here what it's about and what luka is referring to.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Georgian_War

Answer 11

@Andrew

Luka has made it very clear, months ago, that he does not want to have anything to do with you. I agree that some blanket statements were uncalled for, but if Luka does not want to be bothered, his request should be respected no matter the rationale behind such request.

I apologize, but if you fail to leave Luka alone, and I witness one more of such dispute in any existing threads, I will help you to do so myself.

Answer 12

@Andrew I'm sure you are aware of the chaos brought upon this thread by "Please, unblock me". Following this, I don't see why it should be hard for you to cease any contact with Luka. (That is, if he is still here in SL)

Answer 13

@luka, are you sure it's easier? Some languages are truly hard to master. It may be better in the business sense (costs less) to hire one programmer who is good in many languages, but I'm not sure it produces better software. I think it's not known really if it's better to have masters of a language cooperate with each other, or just a few who try to do everything.

Answer 14

@Andrew, yeah. I agree with you somewhat.

Answer 15

@Illusive Man If I'm not mistaken there once were a requirement of "3 year of experience with Swift" when Swift existed only for two years at that time! :-)

Answer 16

@luka, what did he say to offend you anyway, if I may ask? I'm guessing it has something to do with russians but I'm not sure.

Answer 17

How come this thread has developed into a political debate?? 😕

Answer 18

Ok,sorry everybody. Let's return to the topic. I hear more nowadays that you better be master of one and even should not reveal your skills in other areas in your resume, 'cause it can make you loking that "jack of all trades" not mastered any single topic. People doing consulting in HR / job searching in IT say so

Answer 19

@Karl T. Is that you Helioform? O_o
About subject: I think there are places where it is better for company to hire "Jack of all trades" and also places where it's better to find "Master of one". I even think it's obvious.
And offtopic (sorry):
@luka Please unblock me. ? Oh, come on! I'm not an enemy to (for? of?) you (as you said "RIP my English" ;-)). I even like your country not less than my own. (I'm pacifist also... not sure about you though). It's not pleasant to see other people's answers to you without seeing your comments.

Answer 20

Should we remind (to) _all_ Germans of WWII? :-(