I would agree that different influences make you a better programmer, but perhaps not in the way that you meant. Almost every code base I've worked on in indus

I would agree that different influences make you a better programmer, but perhaps not in the way that you meant. Almost every code base I've worked on in industry has been - and I think that most of my co-workers would agree with me - a steaming pile of code that barely functions well enough to do the desired task and is a nightmare to maintain. I've seen this at small shops and big corporations alike. Most of the really nice stuff that I've seen has been from OSS projects and books, and occasionally some project that a lone developer hacked out from scratch with little oversight and few constraints. Dealing with the ugly stuff has given me a good feel for anti-patterns and things to avoid from the get-go, but it has not exactly been a positive influence.