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Monday, February 19, 2018

Work to be replaceable, and you'll be irreplaceable

If your architect hasn't written a tutorial -- not a cursory howto, but a tutorial -- you don't have an architect.

What does a tutorial look like? The canonical example for C# web apps, though now a bit long in the tooth, is NerdDinner:

NerdDinner Tutorial

The best way to learn a new framework is to build something with it. This tutorial walks through how to build a small, but complete, application using ASP.NET MVC, and introduces some of the core concepts behind it.

The application we are going to build is called "NerdDinner". NerdDinner provides an easy way for people to find and organize dinners online...

There's not only a nicely written walkthrough, but documented code and a live, running example.

If your architect hasn't taken the time to articulate their vision thoroughly, in plain, if expert-specific, [language of your locale], there's not much hope for your coders. Your codebase will necessarily be an unmaintainable cyborg (a topic I'm [not] surprised to find I've been ranting about since 2002).

The best job security is none. You've set your stage so well any competent programmer could come in and take over, getting up to speed incredibly quickly.

Those coders who work to ensure they're the most easily replaced are absolutely irreplaceable.