I also was such kind of engineer for years, who had the desire to be a cathedral architect instead of a dusty, worn-out bazaar trader. But the truth is, the baz

I also was such kind of engineer for years, who had the desire to be a cathedral architect instead of a dusty, worn-out bazaar trader. But the truth is, the bazaar is more successful. It needs less system, less skill to join (more skill to master though), less luck. Because there are 1200 libraries that basically do the same thing just with slight variation it means that if something is good in 500 of them a few of them will survive even a catastrophy like a bubble burst. And really funny is that it is also more scalable. Without architecture and oversight many more of the integrations between these little, inexperienced silos fail. But because there are so many more who could start, again a few will make it because they were lucky enough to do the right experiment at the right time. Surviving in such a jungle is of course harder, which is why we engineers, looking for a rather calm life, hate it so much. We want to focus on the code, not on survival. That's why we turn the facts and act like the Bazaar would be less successful where everything actually shows that it really is more successful. If you are like me, and really want to become successful, even if it means leaving your assumptions behind and accepting that you might've been wrong, then look out for people who survive quite well in this jungle, and learn from them. It's learning by doing though, since what you write into a book today might already be irrelevant tomorrow. And there are books with the more abstract concepts out there, but without feeling and doing it, you can't even understand them (but will think you do anyways). Real life feels more like learning Vim than learning Microsoft Word, but in a similar fashion it also offers rewards that are unexpected and come in sizes one wouldn't even dream about.