Prefer Broad Design Skills over Platform Knowledge

Published 02-08-2008 9:58 AM | barakoboy

link: http://www.infoq.com/news/2008/01/prefere-broad-design-skills

Building a team is always a tricky task since it is pretty unlikely to
find people who would fit all the criteria of the ideal candidate.
Trade-offs are inevitable and, in this context, it is crucial to
determine priorities. Broad skills, in terms of software design but
not only, this is what really matters for Martin Fowler.

He asserts in his latest article, that if he had to choose between
someone who knows very well the platform used but has limited
knowledge about design and someone else who has broad design skills
but knows nothing about the specific technology used on the project,
he would choose the latter. He argues, indeed, that even though design
skills are not fully portable from one technology to another and
cannot be replicated blindly, great part of them can carry over not
only among similar technologies but also from curly-brace languages to
Ruby, for example.

Comments

# cruizer said on February 9, 2008 3:46 PM:

agree :) platforms come and go, but design skills can be taken anywhere.

# lamia said on February 10, 2008 2:22 AM:

Didn't read it all. I also agree. But knowledge of the platform is not trivial.