cutting off their nose

Posted Oct 29, 2025 0:10 UTC (Wed) by rgmoore (✭ supporter ✭, #75)
In reply to: cutting off their nose by excors
Parent article: Python Software Foundation withdraws security-related grant proposal

A crucial point is that the value of any member is relative to the needs of their organization. A good team needs people with a wide range of skills. If you focus exclusively on one skill set as the most valuable, you'll wind up with a team that can only do one kind of thing. If instead you try to get a well rounded group with a wide range of skills, you can do more kinds of things. It's not that, say, a technical writer is more "meritorious" than a programmer, but a team with only programmers might benefit more by adding someone to bring their documentation up to date than they would by adding another programmer. A rock band consisting of four lead guitar players might benefit from trading one for a drummer, even if the drummer isn't quite as good a musician.

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cutting off their nose

Posted Oct 29, 2025 12:17 UTC (Wed) by AntiISO (guest, #179626) [Link]

This sounds like a variation of "a solution in search of a problem". Except here, it sounds like a rationalizing attempt at retrofitting a "solution" into an imaginary unsolved problem.

When the task is technical writing, a technical writer very much has more merit than a programmer who is not good at it, although technical writing still requires at least a minimal level of topic/field expertise obviously. If there is a problem finding the right people for that job description, then that's what needs to be improved, measuring the "merit" of technical writers.

But neither did humanity at large somehow had a comprehensive problem groking such banality until a decade or two ago (i.e. recognizing the importance of job descriptions and different skill sets). Nor is nuking the concept of "merit" needed, or presents an actual workable solution in any way, to solve this supposedly existing problem.