that is unnecessarily dismissive of an entire class of programmers (who were, let me add, around long before the web startup explosion). focusing on solving the

that is unnecessarily dismissive of an entire class of programmers (who were, let me add, around long before the web startup explosion). focusing on solving the user's problem is a valuable mindset, and is after all what keeps the industry alive, but focusing on solving the programmer's problem is equally valuable, and helps keep the industry productive. at the end of the day, yes, you can take a deep breath or several and crank out tens of thousands of lines of java which do the job perfectly well. but you can also notice that bits of it are far more easily done in jruby or clojure, and publish an article outlining your observations that lets the next person who has the same problem get it done with a lot less work and a lower error-rate, and surely that is worth something too.