I really enjoyed the article and it made me put a my practices at my day job into perspective – but I think you squeezed in too many aspects of organization, self-development and practices in one single article – or perhaps it is just me, who cannot follow you.

Keep up the good work,

jonasbn

I really relate to your perl comment. I’d forgotten all about my perl “transgressions” until you mention it. And… uh… Huh. My sudden resentment over the indignance of my C# contemporaries with regard to Perl has temporarily neutralized my already limited ability to make further constructive comments. Dammit.

There will probably be dark corners of any interesting application, but they should be placed there on purpose and successfully encapsulated from the rest of the app. Why would they exist? Performance optimizations (the crazy SQL statements come to mind) or to make the rest of the app easier to develop (app specific frameworks). If you do identify a need to get magical, you need to re-think it, then test the crap out of it. Asking for a white paper on the topic wouldn’t hurt.

One thing I’d add when it comes to the team, the generalists, and the lower bus number – it may pay to also consider actually reigning in your geniuses. I didn’t think I’d ever find myself saying this because my old attitude was “We hire smart, capable people who can learn, right? Yes, it’s a new technique – deal.” We don’t compromise the quality of our solutions like this when learning is the core of our job expectation anyway. Right?

But not everybody is created equal. Which is to say talent-wise, sure, but also interest-wise and time-wise. If you put a SQL genius on a project and let them free reign, you might have them submit some things that are elementary to them that your other people just can’t grok. And I don’t even mean “clever code” in the traditional backhanded sense. It could be smart and “clear”, as long as you have the 2 years daily professional use to get it.

If bus number is important, I’d say you can’t just rely on people to practice outside their comfort zone. You also would want to consider working it the other way. Something inside me is uncomfortable telling a genius they can’t exercise their full talent and push the limit of their craft. I’m maybe more uncomfortable telling a smart but less-talented-IN-THIS-ONE-AREA team member they’ve got to count cards as well as Rainman (an impossible standard).