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I think his view of blacksmithing in history is pretty narrow and was constructive to fit his broader point. I'd assume the most respected blacksmiths were constantly testing different metals, weapon and armor types and shapes, smelting techniques, etc.

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Fair enough and thanks for the comment. The point I was trying to illustrate was the pace at which technologies evolve and few are quicker than the web industry. I wholeheartedly agree that the best blacksmiths were constantly improving but it was relatively slow compared to how quickly the web changes (i.e. they didn't have new tools/materials to learn every single day).

What about doctors and lawyers? Their professions change day-to-day, and often at the whim of political leaders. Something as broad as "law" you can't be an expert in, but you can be an expert in patent law or family law or whatever.

That's an interesting point and I suppose if we broke it down and asked can you be an expert in just HTML or CSS, the answer would likely be yes. However, if that's all you knew, you'd have a hard time being hired. The message I was trying to convey is to have a web career, you need to be constantly learn new things all the time.

Thanks for adding to the discussion.

Testing !== using in production ;)

It is where I work!

Far too often: Done with the prototype? Ship it!

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