Basically the key point of his article was that expertise should be viewed in terms of measurable goals and objectives. Research now agrees with that view. Dr. K. Anders Ericsson, one of the world's leading researchers on expertise has done some interesting research on this.http://projects.ict.usc.edu/itw/gel/EricssonDeliberatePracti... The pdf mentions some research that showed that plateaus in learning Morse code were not intrinsic to learning but were dependent on the training methods used to learn
Research does show that it matters whether you choose to focus on one specific subset of the activity, or whether you just practice the activity. Deliberate practice requires that you work with the specific goal of improving a specific weakness. The fact that benefit from practice starts to decline after two hours demonstrates the amount of effort required in deliberate practice.
I wouldn't agree with this summary. I think he was saying
1) Expertise is relative.
His example included the temporal nature of the "cutting-edge" in computing. What was consider best practice 10 years ago is no longer considered even ok.
2) Achieve things by setting an actionable next step instead of a goal of becoming an "expert"
A next step e.g. getting a patch into Rails Core will move you forward, trying to be an "expert" cause you to do things which make you an expert in the eyes of others. I.e. you'll work to fulfill the definition in 1)
"Be less concerned with the adjectives of success–good, great, world-class–and more concerned with taking a worthwhile next step. The path to expertise is the path to nowhere in particular. When you get specific, you get results."
How do you become an expert? Change your concept of expertise! Another excellent article from 30sleeps about thinking outside the box to achieve your goals
Research does show that it matters whether you choose to focus on one specific subset of the activity, or whether you just practice the activity. Deliberate practice requires that you work with the specific goal of improving a specific weakness. The fact that benefit from practice starts to decline after two hours demonstrates the amount of effort required in deliberate practice.