semi-OT: do you routinely attempt projects out of your comfort zone?

On Mar 8, 2010, at 1:36 PM, Keith wrote: Yes. I've found as a consultant (and a engineer), if I didn't pretty much reinvent myself every 10 years I became irrelevant. Or, at least the things I knew how to do well became irrelevant. (don't get much call these days for bringing up 68000 hardware, for instance) Also, knowing a lot about 20V10 CPLD's isn't very much in call. But being able to bring up the internal PPC's in a Virtex 2 was a helpful skill over the past 5 years, especially if you knew how to do it in modelsim. So, turns out that playing with verilog and various simulators was a good use of my time. The only way to learn something new is to go do it, imho. The first time is usually not very good. The second ok, and third becomes reasonably good. Well, not everything is worth learning by everyone. I don't try and do BGA rework. It's much easier to have a specialist do that. And I don't do PCB's over 8 layers or 200MHz - again - it's more "leveraged" to have a specialist do it. Having said that, it's worth spending time studying the literature on what happens when you pass a 1GHz signal through a via. You'll learn a lot and that might come in useful even if you didn't do the layout. Ditto with issue surrounding PCB design rules and manufacturability. Those change all the time and one needs to devote some time to staying "current". Sometimes when you do this you become a dilettante. Not really good at anything. But my opinion is that being a generalist in a handful of areas an a specialist in a few is a good thing. Others may disagree. A lot depends on your personality, to be honest. I would do what you find enjoyable, even if that means you are a complete specialist. (did I mention writing microcode is fun? :-) I have found that if you are not completely sick of a project, it's not done. By the time it is done you are sick of looking at it, mostly because the last 20% take forever and requires herculean perseverance. But when it's done you've learned a lot and you have something to show for your efforts. People pay me for what I've already done. I do new stuff on the side, mostly, just to stay relevant (and for fun, to be honest). Sometimes, if a task is very new and no one has done it before, I will get paid to try. But that's in the 20% range. But as I said, If I only did what I knew, I would have been out of a job long ago. plus, they say that learning new things slows down dementia... -brad Brad Parker Heeltoe Consulting 781-483-3101 http://www.heeltoe.com