If this was d&d the article would be called "the rise of the /mage" and would be about how could you boost your career by dual-classing mage, and my conclusions would be the same: a warrior is not worse than a warrior/mage only more focused and less versatile
The advantage of the dual class, if you'll allow me to stretch your metaphor, is that you can solo a mission, specially if you have the right gear (open source software) to cover your weak points.
I think you missed the point of his coding. He doesn't code part time; he uses his knowledge of coding to enable his primary job. I think this is brilliant. When I became a PM I was in a much better position to guide software updates and recommend "easy win" enhancements because of my coding experience. More people need to do this.
I agree - particularly if you are client-facing and working on a SaaS product. You suddenly have someone who is a better pipeline between the clients and the full-time developers.
Knowing how to code things makes you better able to understand what you're asking for when it comes to adding functionality to a software product. More understanding is definitely a Good Thing. There's much less confusion if you're speaking the same language as the people you're requesting something from.
The counter of that though is the old adage that "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing". Being a part time developer with the arrogance to think you know as much as the full-time experienced guys would be crippling in any technical discussion.
So yeah, definitely learn to code, but don't assume that puts you on the same footing as your team, any more than if they spent a few hours a week learning your job.
Agreed. And that's a fair point – "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing". However, coding knowledge doesn't suffer from this flaw... just look at the tech wishlist companies maintain. The list of projects they wish their engineers would implement for them "just to make our job a little easier" is almost infinite. Being able to knock off a bunch of those w/in your job instead of outsourcing it is really valuable.
Just thought it was funny that in the photo subtitled (Team Olapic at work in their corner of NYC’s “Projected Space”) one of the devs is on Facebook :).
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[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 17.4 ms ] threadThe counter of that though is the old adage that "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing". Being a part time developer with the arrogance to think you know as much as the full-time experienced guys would be crippling in any technical discussion.
So yeah, definitely learn to code, but don't assume that puts you on the same footing as your team, any more than if they spent a few hours a week learning your job.