[Daycrawler]

This really isn't understandable without the context of the article this one is a rebuttal of (http://jasonrudolph.com/blog/2011/08/09/programming-achievem...), and specifically this "method" that the author of the first article uses the be a good developer:

    1. Identify the experiences that advance a person as a developer.
    2. Select a particular experience to pursue.
    3. Pursue that experience to completion. (Achievement unlocked!)
    4. Reflect on that experience. Really soak it in.
    5. Return to Step 2, this time selecting a new experience.

The rebutal's point is that instead of cycling back to step 2 after step 5, you should continue above and beyond, becoming really expert in the field you decided to pursue.

What the rebutal misses, in my opinion, is that in order to go beyond step 5, you need to have chosen an ambitious subject in a first place. A symptom of wanting to cycle from 5 to 2 is that the experience you chose isn't that significant and you can explore most of it quite rapidly. I see it a lot in the web development world, where after having done one or two CRUD applications devs have seen it all, and start cycling through technologies, frameworks and methodologies to make it more spicy.

One solution to this is to move deeper into the backend of rich and complex software/websites, where solving problems related to distributed systems, algorithmic efficiency and architecture will provide (but also require in a first place) vast knowledge and experience; enough for one career at least. Other fields than webdev also work well for this, including embedded systems, security and digital imaging.