For most people, it's good to be both but leaning towards "the other guy" and focus on Getting Shit Done.
Most people are seeking success in their business. You become a detriment to yourself/company if you are constantly studying programming languages and always throwing away yesterdays code with [Y]'s new hotness. Yesterday's code become stale, no one wants to maintain or fix it because they have deemed it unworthy, "ugh who decided to write this in [X], terrible, this is career suicide to waste time on [X] when [Y] was about to be released"
Soon we are throwing away [Y] because [Z] just came out and it will solve all of our problems. There will be no end to "First guy"'s pursuit of the holy grail.
I value Get Shit Done more than any [X,Y,Z]. Nights and weekends are when I get to experiment and try new stuff to satisfy my learning needs, however I look to see what problems [Y] or [Z] is attempting to solve and how I might apply that to [X] and continue to Get Shit Done and focus on business success.
As coders we are similar to craftsmen. You can continue to make furniture with your tools you have now, or you can buy that new machine which will do it faster/better. You are going to take a $$$ hit purchasing that machine but eventually you should break even and return to profit. Now a new machine comes out doing it even faster/better than before. At some point you need to stop investing time/money in trying to become faster/better and realize some profits on what you have learned and are currently using. Likewise there is a time and place for introducing a new language to your company, but you need to make sure you can cash in on that investment or you will never Get Shit Done.
Yes, this is the economized vision of programming (as a trade). I'm sure it plays well in the Bay area. I'm sure its very "realistic" (that is, plays well within the current Standard Assumptions and Expectations).
I personally wish to emphasize the creative aspect of all human activity, esp. programming. The vast majority of worthwhile and lasting contributions to society (, etc.) are creatively, not financially motivated. Financial motivation is the death of creativity and intellectual progress in general.
Think about these statements for a moment, in particular the first which places a slash casually between "yourself" and "company" as though these were twin aspects of the same entity.
> You become a detriment to yourself/company
> Most people are seeking success in their business
> focus on business success
> you need to make sure you can cash in on that investment
"Get Shit Done", that is, accomplishing projects is not a matter of equating your interests to the pure financial motivations of a hypothetical business.
" If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea. "
This seems too profound to too grand for everyday matters, but it is precisely about a (then) every day matter: building a ship.
When a researcher spends 20 years of their life on a single problem is it not their University they are thinking of, nor of the "business success".
When might we again write programs for the sake of something? And when might we take the writing of programs as an end in itself? The two ethical and aesthetic questions which this monetization of motivation completely obscures.
Most people are seeking success in their business. You become a detriment to yourself/company if you are constantly studying programming languages and always throwing away yesterdays code with [Y]'s new hotness. Yesterday's code become stale, no one wants to maintain or fix it because they have deemed it unworthy, "ugh who decided to write this in [X], terrible, this is career suicide to waste time on [X] when [Y] was about to be released"
Soon we are throwing away [Y] because [Z] just came out and it will solve all of our problems. There will be no end to "First guy"'s pursuit of the holy grail.
I value Get Shit Done more than any [X,Y,Z]. Nights and weekends are when I get to experiment and try new stuff to satisfy my learning needs, however I look to see what problems [Y] or [Z] is attempting to solve and how I might apply that to [X] and continue to Get Shit Done and focus on business success.
As coders we are similar to craftsmen. You can continue to make furniture with your tools you have now, or you can buy that new machine which will do it faster/better. You are going to take a $$$ hit purchasing that machine but eventually you should break even and return to profit. Now a new machine comes out doing it even faster/better than before. At some point you need to stop investing time/money in trying to become faster/better and realize some profits on what you have learned and are currently using. Likewise there is a time and place for introducing a new language to your company, but you need to make sure you can cash in on that investment or you will never Get Shit Done.