"– Find a company that does want you to be as good a programmer as you can be." This truly is wishful thinking. If you compare programming to story writing the

"– Find a company that does want you to be as good a programmer as you can be." This truly is wishful thinking. If you compare programming to story writing then most companies want you to output a solid news article every day, that pays the bills, while most writers would like to output award winning creative writing, that has a small audience, and does not pay the bills. Programming is similar. Professional programming optimizes for speed and usefulness rather than elegance and perfection.