And another thing…

While tweeting earlier, I began thinking about my job and my skillset. I have been a web developer professionally for a number of years now, and for many more years as an unpaid amateur. While in college, I did my best to keep up with trends in web design and ensure that I didn’t get left too far behind.

When I left college, I first worked for a web design company, who did websites for a number of different clients. Because the requirements were so varied, I had to keep up with changes. I used several languages and technologies on a day to day basis, because some were better suited to the tasks than others.

Now I’m in a different position. I am a web developer working for a pharmaceutical company. The scope of what I do is huge, and the development list is ever growing. But due to existing frameworks, existing platforms, etc., I find that I’m always developing in the same languages (namely Caché, and Java [J2EE], some jsp). While I continue to boost my skill level in Caché, I have noticed myself that I have less time to experiment with other languages.

In particular, I read about web conferences, and different tweets and blogs about friends and colleagues who are in web development companies (or are freelancing) and I wonder if I’ve made the right decision, or if I’m being left behind.

I’m sure that I could pick up these new languages and frameworks quickly, as I have had no trouble doing so in the past. I had no Caché experience when I started this job and was able to reach a level of proficiency quite quickly. But I do wonder if there will come a point where there is simply too much to catch up on.

And then, of course, we come to a decision I have debated myself a hundred times over – is it better to be a generalist, or a specialist? I could be a Caché specialist, but then, I don’t think there’s a very big market for that. I could be a generalist, but surely there is a point where one is stretched too thin in trying to have a hand in everything?

What do you think? Is it better to be a specialist or a generalist? And is it better to do in-house web design, or to work for a web design company?

Answers on a postcard…

A blog that I quite enjoyed reading can be found here: http://gimpyblog.wordpress.com/2009/11/11/hmc21-hammering-the-nails-into-homeopathy/

I have always been fairly skeptical of homeopathy, and some of my recent reading material (Bad Science, Trick or Treatment, Suckers) has really served to reaffirm my beliefs and to provide me with a wealth of evidence to back them up.

To my mind, it is clear that homeopathy does make some people better, but for different reasons than they would assert. Varying degrees of the placebo affect, the feeling of being more cared for, the comfort of a “diagnosis”, etc., will all, I believe, make a person feel better if they have been suffering from some vague malaise.

In this case, I don’t begrudge them. If you really believe that taking a drop of Rescue Remedy before an exam will help you succeed, then who am I to burst your bubble? Largely, this kind of thing doesn’t harm anyone, and while you are essentially buying into something I don’t believe in, I have seen what positive thought and belief can do to, and for, people.

I have to draw the line, however, when it comes to real, problematic diseases and conditions. There have been far too many cases where people have died of easily preventable and/or treatable conditions because, rather than take medicine, they opted for “natural” medicine, or homeopathy. Once such example particularly offended me recently – the case of Thomas, Manju, and Gloria Sam. This article will give you more details, but in summary – the child (Gloria) suffered from severe eczema, and the parents refused conventional treatments, instead opting to provide homeopathic drops and other remedies. They also flew the child to India to receive further homeopathic treatment. When Gloria was eventually brought home and to a hospital, with an eye infection so severe that her corneas were melting, there was little the professionals could do. Her body was literally worn out from fighting the various infections that her compromised skin could not keep out of her body. She died of septicaemia.

The child in the above story suffered much more pain than she ever should have, simply because her parents refused conventional treatment. When cases like this come up, I think that removing all the homeopathic remedies from the shelf might not be such a bad idea.

I am aware that there are many plants that have important pharmaceutical properties, and that many of the drugs we now use today originally came from plants. However, most of these drugs are not produced from the original sources, because it is too difficult to control – by producing them artificially, dosage, strength, quality all can be controlled. I don’t believe that there is a big conspiracy on the part of the pharmaceutical companies to suppress “natural” remedies – many medical remedies come from “natural” sources. I genuinely believe that if there was a flower out there that could cure cancer, people would already be exploring its properties, cultivating it, and seeing how they could make it most effective, and also safe.

I think that when it comes to making healthcare decisions, you should look to the proof, not the spin, to decide. And to my mind, there is too little proof of efficacy in homeopathic remedies.