Well, one of the nice things (I think) about being a software developer (and one-time "scientist") is that you get to measure your mettle with nature - to test

Well, one of the nice things (I think) about being a software developer (and one-time "scientist") is that you get to measure your mettle with nature - to test your ideas out in the real world - to see if your preconceptions hold, or if your ideas are only so much hot air ... and all too often, they are. My initial ideas are always wrong (well, most of the time), and I pretty much always need several rounds of testing against reality to refine my designs into something workable. Getting the right answer is hard. Really hard. I never understood how some people could go through life and avoid ever being wrong; dancing around responsibilities, never taking the blame, being driven by a (frankly irresponsible) culture that demands perfection. For me, my failures are lessons; mistakes marking a path of learning and progress. Good will; systematic persistence; humility and humour - all recipes for learning and improvement: Flashy self-aggrandisement, an emphasis on performance and (self-proclaimed) brilliance: all recipes for deceit, lies and failure.