[hopia]

What I understood is this author's definition of a generalist is someone who expands his scope beyond just programming. To things like design, business development, hr management, recruiting, raising funds etc.

Generally, it may not be so common to find an individual who's almost equally as passionate about all of these things. In the end we got limited time on this planet and can't learn everything.

[ewindal]

If you ever want to rise in the ranks as an engineer, design and business are practically required.

[viklove]

Building the thing right is useless unless you're building the right thing.

[geggam]

Perfectionism is never allowed in a business environment.

In fact most of those folks turn toxic because they don't get their way

[cat199]

he said 'right' thing not 'perfect' thing - certainly those that building the 'right' thing do better in a business environment than those that build the 'wrong' thing, no?

[asdff]

You don't have to be equally good at everything, but if your business or field deals with a number of different specialties regularly, it makes your life easier if you know the basics in these other areas at least. You will make better contributions and better see how your piece fits into the bigger picture.

[Scarblac]

That's not how I read the article. Seems to me he tries to do everything that has to do with (Web) software development, but not wider than that.

[hopia]

Well in that case the definition of a generalist is much more narrow. Would we call a mathematician who is comfortable with all topics within algebra a generalist?