Re: Original work [was RE: STC certification program:skepticalcurmudgeonlyness, part II]

["Gene Kim-Eng" <techwr -at- genek -dot- com>]

I suppose I must be misunderstanding your point, because a single operator 
employing standardized methodologies and tools is no less a "technician" 
than one who is working on only a bit of a project along with others. It's 
not how many people are doing the work, but how they are doing it. The 
difference between engineering and artisan is that the artisan employs 
processes and skills that are non-standard and which may venture into less 
objective territory.  For example, when I write the teardown manual for an 
engine, my methods and tools are standardized (there are, in fact formal 
standards that define them) and anyone following the standard with similar 
skill levels will arrive at pretty much the same result.  Neil Gaiman, on 
the other hand, my use the same word processing software that I use, but 
nobody who uses the same tools and methods he employs is going to produce 
exactly the same result he does.  I am a technician/engineer; Neil Gaiman is 
an artisan/artist.  And if Gaiman and I both took on a partner, or two or 
three, the difference between how we work and what we produce would be just 
as glaring.  Also, members of any team I put together will be more or less 
interchangable and the results will still be the same, but if Neil Gaiman 
abandons his project and Stephen King takes it over, wave goodbye to 
standardized results.

Gene Kim-Eng


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mark Baker" <mbaker -at- analecta -dot- com>