> And through his books he distributed this "knowledge" to a lot of people who became dogmatic to his "teachings". A dogmatic following of even the best of ide

> And through his books he distributed this "knowledge" to a lot of people who became dogmatic to his "teachings". A dogmatic following of even the best of ideas often leads to problems (e.g., your interview example). Software engineering is a thinking craft. It's critical to be constantly thinking about the tradeoffs involved in the systems we're building so we can find a better set of tradeoffs. The same goes for the tradeoffs offered by our tools, techniques, approaches, etc. in any given situation. Even the best techniques are the wrong choice in some situations. I think books, articles, advice from experienced engineers, etc. are best used to set up a set of questions in your head along with default answers. As you gain experience and as our craft evolves, you should be throwing out some of the default answers (or even some of the questions) and replacing them with ones you see elsewhere or ones that your experience has taught you. But they continue to be default answers, not the right answers for every situation.