[amenod]

I agree with poster about the general idea (every programmer should stay in touch with development. However, I have a distinct impression that he likes to stay at the very edge of technology advances:

> I was writing web applications when I first heard of Ajax (a few months after the term was coined) and I started using it; again I wound up teaching my teammates about the new thing first. Sadly it scared the architecture team who thought I had bought some new technology without approval and wondered if it was supported. None of them had heard of it (since they didn't pay much attention) and when I told them it was just Javascript they were only barely mollified.

I can imagine being an architect and having a programmer like that, bringing up every hip thing he encounters, just because it is cool and new... Probably not even considering all of the ramifications. Yeah, sure, AJAX is here to stay (as we know now), but how many "perspective" technologies are now long dead?

I like staying a bit further behing the edge. I follow the direction of technology but I use it only when it is proven and supported well enough. Well, usually. :)