I think one of the notions behind the Fowler criticism is something like this: "Early on, a bunch of people got famous as programming thought leaders, but later

I think one of the notions behind the Fowler criticism is something like this: "Early on, a bunch of people got famous as programming thought leaders, but later we all found out there were much deeper, smarter thinkers who didn't get all the buzz." So the "early" ones might be Fowler, Uncle Bob, Beck, Grady Booch, Evans (DDD), etc. And the "deeper" ones would be the authors of SICP, or Peter Norvig, or Chris Lattimer. I can see where this sentiment is coming from, and there's no doubt truth to it. I'd say SICP is _without a doubt_ deeper and more insightful than most or maybe all of what Fowler has written. From that standpoint, SICP should be more famous than Fowler, but it doesn't seem to be the case. It definitely was not the case 10 years ago. Still, let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Fowler's writing has explained some difficult concepts very clearly. And he chooses topics wisely (but not perfectly in hindsight). So yes, there are two "tiers" of "experts" about building software. Clearly there is a "tier 1" that is better, more proven, deeper, than Fowler/Martin/et al. That puts Fowler and some others at tier 2 (or lower, all subjective of course). That doesn't mean tier 2 is entirely worthless though. IMO far from it.