It comes hand-in-hand with the rapid growth of people entering development with a commercial mindset. This has been a thing ever since there was a software indu

It comes hand-in-hand with the rapid growth of people entering development with a commercial mindset. This has been a thing ever since there was a software industry, but as the profession has grown farther away from academia it's only gotten more prominent. For this group, the point of it all is not to do anything particularly principled or learn it as an art, but to run a grift or a hustle where everyone is role-playing and the code is the means to the ends, not the end in itself: Posture as a good developer, focus on the conversation, on selling yourself and selling a solution, then back it up with some legitimate skills or a very clever workaround as needed. I point to the popularity of Youtubers like Joshua Fluke[0] as a good example of the mindset and how it's articulated. It isn't a "wrong" way to do things - this mindset is mercenary, geared to go up against every exploitative owner and manager and skillfully negotiate them into a fairer valuation of your labor - and it can result in decent software and happy clients - but it's also cynical and assumes low trust, and as I get a bit older I do see it as being a bit like choosing an alignment in a Dungeons & Dragons character: The "lawful goods" and "chaotic evils" tend to cluster and support each other in their own ways, it's just that at the start of your career you can't tell them apart yet, and you don't know which way you'll ultimately go, but the work you end up doing over the long run is determined as much by your approach and mindset as any specific skill. [0] https://www.youtube.com/user/Tychos1 https://www.youtube.com/user/Tychos1