Remember some of the hot-button issues in tech over the last decade? People angry over the use of the word "passion". The merits of "craftsmanship". Whether the "10x developer" is a myth.
Something connects all of these debates, and nobody's really talking about it. That's why I wrote this essay: https://blog.testdouble.com/posts/2023-07-12-the-looming-demise-of-the-10x-developer/
@searls your article really resonated with me, as someone also from this era/background.
You nailed the traits of the enthusiast programmer, but I‘ve found that as I’ve become more commercially-aware, it’s become more of a (healthy) personal/internal tug-of-war: the traits taken to the extreme or without pragmatism lead to unnecessary/unobtainable perfectionism, NIH, under-delegation and burn-out.
@searls both sides can learn a lot from one another but the challenge is education and hiring need to represent that.
Would love to hear your experiences/thoughts as to whether you’ve seen the same throughout your career.
Justin Searls
Ryan Townsend (old account)