Less B.S., more code

Tom Ball has an interesting blog today -- those of you behind filters may not be able to see it due to his brief and arguably appropriate use of a term meaning bovine excrement or statements meant to make listeners think well of the speaker, regardless of their truth or falsity -- and it's all about whether top Java minds should actually, you know, write Java code.

Depending on what kind of work experience you've had, you might find it remarkable that another side to this argument exists. If you work for scrappy little startups and adhere to an agile methodology, then chances are everybody you know writes code. Heck, the CEO and CTO might be writing code (they might even be the same person). On the other hand, in a big, established company with huge ornate projects that take years to finish (if they ever do), you might find it common practice to have some top-tier architects who hand down designs for the more junior staffers to go and implement.

It's this latter scneario that Tom considers in his blog Is Writing Code a Career Limiting Move?. He writes:

The top jobs these days are for "software architects", and architects aren't supposed to write code; instead they write specifications which us lowly programmers are to blindly follow. This was certainly true with the J2EE engineering team a couple of years ago, where the "spec lead" was not allowed to write any code; that was the job of the junior "implementation engineer" for that API. I got into a heated exchanged with one of their Distinguished Engineers over this issue, and of course arguing with DEs at Sun is yet another CLM!

So is the path to a better salary and nicer office to not write code at all? Check out the rest of Tom's blog and let us know what your experience tells you about advancing your career.