There's like three groups of developers you need:

The prototypers, who move fast and break things, who throw together shiny first versions that look great and work some of the time;

The architects, who take the prototypes and take the time to build it correctly;

And the gardeners, who maintain the built system for the next 10-30 years, fixing bugs, making incremental improvements to speed or resource usage, and updating dependencies so that it continues to function on modern machines.

The crazy thing is that there are a ton of developers with different tastes who would love to fill each of the roles, but not many companies that are able to manage all three types without pushing everyone into one bucket.

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olvy0 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Ha, I'm a gardener then, on my 15th year of maintenance. So halfway there according to you. Slowly, very slowly, fixing the thousands of bugs the rockstar left behind 15 years ago.

	▲	bjertoref 3 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		This comment made me imagine what would the guy maintaining my first deployed project at my first company thinks about me. Never had this thought ever cross my mind.
	▲	saalweachter 38 minutes ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		It's easy to look at a newly made garden, its flowers all freshly planted and its paths all neatly laid out, and think it finished, but once you see one that's been carefully maintained for decades and how its plants have matured and grown together and how the steps have been worn by human feet, it's clear the project is merely off to a good start.