Archive for the ‘Programming’ Category:
A Sea of Experts
Consider, for a moment, the wonderful things that the Internet has done for us, as a global community: it has given us near-instantaneous communication, buying, selling, gaming, searching, archiving, broadcasting, and a great deal more. However, one of the most significant things that the Internet has given us is a sea of so-called experts… (I say ‘so-called’, not in a way that is intended to suggest there are no true experts, but rather that there are many who claim expertise, but are, in fact, incompetant).
It’s very hard, these days, to be ‘outstanding’ in any particular area: everyone seems to be an expert in some particular field, or other. Quite why we, as the human race, have this inherent obsession with being ‘the expert’ on a particular topic, I’m not quite sure, but it is both saddening and dangerous for the technological community. “Why?”, you might ask – well, let’s consider…
These days, we pay so very little attention to sources of information, and the details and evidence behind them (we’re far too busy scanning our several hundred subscriptions in our feed readers to even think about reading into any particular detail), we lose track of all attribution and credibility of sources. A simple example of this is Wikipedia: whilst a great resource, it is frequently the downfall of many people who believe its information to be accurate, and reliable… neither of which is consistently the case. The anonymity of the Internet has given rise to a whole new breed of ‘expert’… a breed that appears more intelligent, and more reliable, than they actually are.
A prime example of the problem can be found within communities such as Twitter, where there are thousands of people promoting themselves as experts on everything from horticulture, to business startups. Some of these people will have formal qualifications, proven experience, and valid expertise that would, in an earlier time in history, still have got the job done… but most of those claiming to be experts are often no more credible than Joe Average who you met down the pub last week.
The difference? Well, it’s probably Google.
With the growth of Internet searching, has come the growth of this Internet phenomenon. Anyone and everyone can search the collective, archived, pool of human knowledge, and come up with a semi-reasonable answer to a question that, to the untrained ear, can seem like true expertise. The problem here, of course, lies in the fact that retaining information does not make you an expert… an expert exhibits both knowledge and wisdom of application of that knowledge, to provide an all-round, optimised and customised solution to the problem at hand.
The majority of so-called experts today, simply are not experts – they are wannabe, false prophets, who do more harm than good for those who are lulled into the trap of considering them to be of some significance, intelligence or importance.
A good example of this problem, and its solution, is summed up by an excerpt from an interview that David Parnas gave back in 1999 (emphasis mine):
Q: What is the most often-overlooked risk in software engineering?
A: Incompetent programmers. There are estimates that the number of programmers needed in the U.S. exceeds 200,000. This is entirely misleading. It is not a quantity problem; we have a quality problem. One bad programmer can easily create two new jobs a year. Hiring more bad programmers will just increase our perceived need for them. If we had more good programmers, and could easily identify them, we would need fewer, not more.
What this highlights, more than anything, is that we fail to recognise true potential when it arrives… we fail to understand the qualities that make up a true expert and, as such, we presume many different people to be experts in areas they have little or no expertise. What we need do is give credit where it’s due: credit our true experts, credit those who make phenomenal breakthroughs in science, technology, and other areas of our day-to-day lives… and be weary of those who might try to sell us their ‘talents’ without any reputable qualification, experience or achievement to back up those claims.