I think this article says more about the corporate culture where programmers work than about their capacity. What happens in Microsoft, as in most other compani

I think this article says more about the corporate culture where programmers work than about their capacity. What happens in Microsoft, as in most other companies, is that they make a decision about what a person can do in about 1 to 3 years. After that period, they will no longer give exciting assignments to the programmer and he will be forever viewed by management as doing the same old job. Many times this happens because of lack of determination from the part of the employee, but frequently because he didn't have the right opportunities and didn't know how to look for them. Usually when this happens, either the employee will leave the company in a short period, looking for better opportunities, or resign itself to do the same thing until retirement (or until he gets lucky).