This article misses the overall value of teamwork and devalues face-to-face communication. Talk to other professions and see if people work this way. Do doctors

This article misses the overall value of teamwork and devalues face-to-face communication. Talk to other professions and see if people work this way. Do doctors work on their own if they encounter something they don't know? How about engineers? Lawyers? I'm not advocating disturbing a senior all the time, or for extended periods. However, your search and spelunking through the codebase does not beat random access from the person who knows it. By all means, then take the time to document it, and provide a roadmap for others. Face to face is an opportunity for the senior person to do a running heath check, and make sure your plan makes sense or is consistent with the framework in place. If you recall, BeOS's performance on SMP machines was attributed by Gassee to having the two kernel and gui engineers sitting next to one another. If you are in business, then you are competing with another company. It is no longer university where your personal abilities are tested.