The only reason I recommend this paper is because I encounter so many people that have a very myopic view of the software that they’re building. They are focused on individual features and how to quickly made them happen regardless of what happens to its cohesiveness. You start to talk about interfaces and contracts and they’re like a deer blinded by a car’s headlights.

I wouldn't start to think of someone as a real developer unless they've at least designed & written something of at least 10K LOC or so of complexity from scratch a few times. At least, you're not going to be able to understand these lessons and characterizations of programming in the large unless you do have at least that level of experience.

The larger and more varied projects that you have designed from scratch, the more you start to understand what programming/designing is really about.