Pro or Jack of all trades?

Just thought I'd pose this to gather a few thoughts:

Do you prefer to focus on one specific area of hacking in attemp to be the best you can be, or would you rather be more of a jack of all trades and be fairly competent in most or all areas?

Personally, I prefer to be more all-around. What about you?

Would you rather be the the best at one thing or ok at everything?

I think it pays to have at least some experience in as many areas of hacking as you can, and also concepts of the physical computer itself. It's better to have a broad knowledge than to be stuck with only one way to do things, even if you do have a 'specialty'.

Just my two cents ^_^

I agree with that. I just wondered if anybody would see merit in being a specialist over being versatile. I personally like being in to everything but I often wonder what it would be like to be an uber genious in one specific area. Would it be worth it? Dunno…

This is only one right answer to the wording of this question . In order to be a hacker you must know many languages not one or two but many . You cant know just how to operate a few programs you must be well knowledged at many in order to get the job done . Thats why it takes a longtime to get to the top .

My favorite quote is :

I know a little about alot . But i know alot about a little .

I to think it is best to know a little bit about everything rather than only be an expert at one thing and unknowledgable about most things . Plus in a career sense of this topic , who would you chose to hire . A guy that was only expert at c# and didnt know much of anything about .asp or linux or anything else of use ? Or would you hire the guy that was efficient and profficient at many ?

Yeah, I would certainly choose diversity. It just got me thinking because so many of the "professionals" that I work with have taken the single-sided "expert" approach. Although it's nice to be an expert at something or to be recognized as an authority in your field, I find being wide-spread to be much more valuable. I wonder what drives people to narrow their experience and skills.

if you are going alone then yeah, a great diversity yields greater results, however, if you are working in a team then a speciality would maybe be better, so your combined knowledge is much greater but still as broad. of course, in the team situation you would still need to know more than just the basics in a wide variety of techniques, even if your partners knew a lot about them because you can use one idea and one piece of knowledge to explore and enhance your speciality area.

just my view.

all round for me. but atleast 1 area that u shoudl know liek the bakc of ur hand

soz guys gunna brake the trend here. I prefer too have rather shallow knowledge of all areas like Web-Hacking and wat not for me. And then really in-depth knowledge of about three areas for me thats rooting, networks (wardriving bludediving), phreaking.

I sort of agree…

With the techniques that i use regularly, i would call myself competent, the only things i'd actually call myself an expert on is Python and Networking.

im with richo and santa.

I know enough about most things to fake it if i have too. But a guru, only a few topics.

With that you generally adapt all hacks to fit those topics. I;m big into code, so when i cannot hack a site, i code an app to do it (dont ask me how that one works. if i cant and it can, but it does damnit)

but unless you have at least some knowledge of the other areas you dont even know what terms to google for relevant info