advice is relative

March 11, 2009 | Category: personal development |

On the internets, lots of advice is given, many times as a reaction to a bad practice. This is often singularly “away” from the bad practice, as far as possible. Although the advice provider means well, it creates cultures of extremes, which is a shame.

A lot of people need to stay up to date with a lot of stuff, while they don’t always have the time to research in great depth (I’m looking at you, managers!). So a lot of that “counter-advice” is taken as an absolute truth and imposed upon others, who might have more knowledge on the subject, but do not have the mandate to counter such decisions.
An example; in html we have the internet-age old discussion of tables versus “divs”. This leads to the impression in some that no other element is needed, or worse, desired. Every time i hear table-design, i know what is meant. Every time is hear “div-design”, i get a strong stabbing sensation in my right hemisphere.
Another example; Joel Spolsky claims programmers can never report to program managers (http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2009/03/podcast-45/) and CTO’s should never write a spec (http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2009/03/09.html). I understand where this is coming from, but what about small companies, where the aforementioned roles are of the same person? Of course, this is a minor technicality, a discrepancy if you will. But it also implies that the reader is left with the responsibility to ignore the word “never” in these statements.

My conclusion is to learn from advice, but not to copy it blindly. Always allow an open mind and common sense into the picture. And always allow yourself to see the individuality of cases. Patterns can be productive, but can be dangerous at the same time. You might overlook a detail which changes the best way to handle the problem altogether …

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