"Wanted: Spaghetti-Wizard" There are indeed a lot of factors involved and a good environment/stack/management can result in a lot of productivity from the team

"Wanted: Spaghetti-Wizard" There are indeed a lot of factors involved and a good environment/stack/management can result in a lot of productivity from the team or at least multiple individuals. There are probably a handful of people in your city who could even do good work with spaghetti stacks and chaotic management. But if your software requires a Spaghetti-Wizard, you're in deep doo-doo when he/she leaves because Spaghetti-Wizards are rare and hard to identify up front. It's a safer bet to clean up your organization and processes by listening to multiple people and not getting caught up in hype. Non-friends give you the most useful advice. If you gravitate toward people who only tell you what you want to hear, you'll have a biased perspective. Another thing, sometimes a given stack or org is just not a good fit for you. People think in different ways. The author perhaps should have looked around and if other devs were doing fine with the odd stack, just say, "for some reason I find this particular stack confusing and difficult." Be honest and don't bash the architect if it's only you struggling.