[smt88]

I've been programming for 17 years (started as a kid), and I also don't understand a lot of what's on HN. The simple fact is that CS is too broad for you to have expert knowledge of every area, and HN is full of articles that are deep dives to pique the interest of specialists.

There was a thread a while back about this exact topic, and someone mentioned that John Carmack doesn't know SQL or anything about relational databases. True masters are rarely generalists.

[redmaverick]

"I often feel bad that I have zero experience with relational databases. Big gap in my skill sets." ~ John Carmack

https://twitter.com/id_aa_carmack/status/457916010234777600

How can someone accomplish so much and not know anything about SQL/RDBMS. Pretty surprising though.

[smt88]

I'd argue that a lot of his success was directly related to not knowing anything about SQL/RDBMS because they were not required by his specialty.

Instead of spending time learning SQL, which he'd never use while creating a game, he only learned and practiced the skills he used for games. It's incidental that a lot of those skills are fairly universal and low-level, which gives us the false impression that Carmack is a generalist.

[RogerL]

Why not? He doesn't need to use it for his work, why would he spend time learning it vs learning something relevant for his field? Oh, I know, to pass a GYMAAAE interview, but that is a pretty bad reason.

There's a universe of programmers that don't work in the LAMP stack (including me) because it doesn't suit what they are trying to accomplish.