| > Both are incorrect. There is no wall. There is no wall if you define a wall as something that can't be tunnelled through. So I'd agree that a wall is not a good analogy (and I also never used it). But I'm reasonably sure that there is a hill in between, namely the hill to go from one local optimum to another, more deeper one. Whether anyone can mount that hill that depends on her/his drive to learn. All that (good) academic degrees do is basically filtering for people with that drive. That doesn't mean that people without degrees can't have that of course, it just means that some effort needs to be spent finding them. > Also worth reflecting that software is still relatively new and we really don't know what we're doing. I agree wholeheartedly, and that's exactly why I'm very skeptical of people falling in love with some hammer-du-jour. It can be an OS, it can be a paradigm, it can be an editor, a library or a programming language - one should always be aware of its downsides, unknowns, alternatives and predecessors (and why/if they failed). Edit: One more thing: > I have watched many developers progress from being coders ("hammers") to being thoughtful architects I don't doubt that one bit. To continue with the analogy, there's two ways to approach a 'hammer': becoming proficient in it, yet keep recognising that it is a tool and only a tool, and its use should be questioned as often as possible. To be able to do that it is often necessary to learn a few other tools at the same time, just to see the other side of the coin. Learning the right tools most certainly makes you a better architect as well though. The other way is to fall in love with the hammer and then start seeing everything as nails. I'm often seeing examples of people stuck in such a mindset and it usually happens with things that have a large community that serves as an echo chamber for people's fandom. |