The Craft of Classification

Ravi mohan writes another thought-provoking post on this blog in response to the notion of classifying programmers into 3 categories - apprentice, journeyman and master.

I have to admit I was a bit swayed by Pete mcBreen's book when I first read it - mainly because I had read about that idea for the first time. But then Ravi is onto something when he shows how that classification may have no real value. The book talks about a situation where it says its okay for a "master" to learn a new language from an "apprentice" and that this doesnt invalidate him of his current category of "master". How is this possible? A student is always supposed to see himself as lower in that relative situation when he learns something from a teacher.
When Pete McBreen and others advocate this idea, I suspect they have an underlying assumption about the quality of the learning. Maybe they are saying that the master already has the fundamental concepts down(which is a higher quality of learning) and he just learns another language syntax which is of a lower quality of learning. But will this always be the case?
Imagine a UNIX guru in the league of Eric Raymond or Richard Stallman. Lets call him Mr X. He has been working on UNIX for years and written dozens of open-source tools, is very active in communities and is usually approached when his UNIX peers have issues. According to McBreen, he would be a master. Lets say he is hired by a shop that does development mostly in UNIX tools but also have a smattering of applications in Scheme. He starts working with a candidate who has a good knowledge of Scheme but is not active in the public domain (as a result of which he is not well-known). Now, I am sure Mr X will definitely not breeze through Scheme, since its not just a new language - it requires a different way of thinking. Now in this situation, there is a lot of "higher" quality learning involved where the "master" learns from the "apprentice". Whos the master here then?

All my thoughts are based on the following premise:
There are too many varied things in software for them to be grouped into a "general" category that somebody can be said to be good at.
If somebody has sound concepts of OO design, he may be quick to pick up Java, C, C++, C#, etc but it may not be easy to pick up Python or Ruby or Smalltalk. That is to say, it will not be easy to think "the Ruby way". And also by the same token, sound programming concepts in even Python or Ruby or any language will not make you a good webdesigner, adept at CSS, HTML or Flash.

I guess then what can conclude is:
1. The only thing one can categorize a person is with respect to a particular paradigm and/or language ("OO programming", "Functional programming" is a paradigm - "Java", even ".NET" is a language for purposes of explaining). If he has to work on another area he doesnt know, he is a novice there and there is nothing wrong with that fact. So Mr X is a UNIX "master" but an "apprentice" in Scheme. There is nothing wrong with a classification which relates to a particular technology/paradigm/language/framework.
2. The only way to categorize a person with respect to a technology is by seeing his work.
There can be no other parameter. No writings, no talks, or drawing on the board. Now, the question is, how do you know if his work is good? Sadly, it cant be judged right away. This can only be decided over a period of time. Say over a course of 2,3,5 years, how many times was it changed? How easy was it to change? Has he constantly delivered running, "not-getting-in-the-way" software to the users?

After reading McBreens book, I started thinking, "I am an apprentice now..I want to be a journeyman in X years, and then a master in a another Y years." Looks like it wont work. I am now going to say - "I know java and I want to learn Python this year. Next year I will dig into Scheme. And hey, OCAML looks interesting, why not try it after that?" And when I get that job in the Python firm that wants me to maintain some apps in Erlang on the side, I will seek out the "Erlang guy" and become his "apprentice"!