mosjeff

Is this the one?

http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2011/12/the-stack-big-board/

I couldn't help think: "New? It's over 20 years old...". By this logic, we should still be giving Nirvana awards for "Nevermind".

Thanks for sharing. I really like your perspective (not to mention the analogy). Would you agree, though, that part of the problem is with company's views on their own employee's trajectories?

Great advice. Similar to you, the main vexation has been "what comes next". Being a developer, you can scale your knowledge vertically and horizontally, constantly improving yourself and growing. Being a "shit umbrella", though, doesn't seem to lend itself to such growth opportunities.

Wow, this article couldn't have come at a better time for me. Recently, I jumped from being a lead developer to being an architect and manager. Benjamin articulates exactly what I'm going through. Unfortunately, I don't think going backwards is an option for me.

Has anybody heard of or personally experienced a company actually doing this?

I haven't tried this myself but it definitely sounds like a great idea. Very similar to the purposes of Quicksilver, Alfred, or Launchy. Only instead of searching for applications, you're searching for functions within an application.

I've used Foursquare for about a year now and I have to say that I agree with his statements.

However, I feel that if anybody is going to eliminate Foursquare, it would be the credit card companies. Reason being, my credit card statement can give you a more accurate picture of where I spend my time and money. And that information is what is important to the "real" customers of Foursquare (i.e. businesses and cities).

We're already seeing this start to happen with American Express. They've partnered with Foursquare and have people link their AmEx card with their Foursquare account to get special deals on certain check-ins.

"Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell.

Completely changed the way I think about success and my future.

I think the problem with finding a one true path is that computer science, as a concentration, has many different avenues.

You could focus on developing for the web and work with tools that make dealing with the challenges of the internet easier.

You could focus on developing for a computer system, writing in low-level languages that help you take advantage of a system's hardware.

You could even focus on developing for an integrated circuit that doesn't even qualify as a full "computer" to most people.

Each of these avenues will lead you to different languages, tools, and paradigms.

So, the (rhetorical) question is, what are you trying to accomplish?

It's hard to think that the answer to all of our platforms and languages is yet another platform and language.

Java set out to solve a very similar problem (write once, run everywhere) and the issues it ran into didn't involve the language itself but the platform specific framework/libraries.

Furthermore, let's remember that a developer can build C code on virtually all major operating systems using various compilers without being encumbered by licensing issues.

"If you want a truly righteous hack..."

I was so hoping for a "you should score one of those Gibsons."