[dpark]

To be fair, you haven't provided any legitimate basis for your claims about the link between history buffs and software architects. I'm just saying that your claims are unfounded, and so I'm not making any claims that demand support. Your claim that interest in history is correlated closely with ability to architect software is not obvious prima facie, so it demands support to be believable.

I also don't think your handful is a very large sample size, regardless of what correlations you think you see. Honestly, I can't imagine how you're even attempting to gathering this info. Are you just randomly asking people if they've read 1776 during the interview?

But no, hiring "hundreds of developers" is still not the same as actually measuring. I do not believe that you have files that track how history-oriented your developers are (make them take a survey?) vs how productive they are, so that you can find a proper correlation. A proper study of this might yield a strong correlation (though I doubt it), but it would require a lot more than casual observation during your hiring.

I did assume that you were the one printing the programs, because that's how I read your reply. In the 'old days', compile time was a chance to print out your code on fanfold paper ...". If that was a misunderstanding, then I guess it changes the situation. Sure, if someone's already handed you a stack of printed code, why not look through it while compiling?

Hope you enjoyed your ravioli. Cheers.