I've noticed that people who can do this are disproportionately better at achieving their goals than those who can't, especially in engineering organizations. Exceptions of course for zealots and revolutionaries.

This usually only happens when one begins to make personal insults, i.e. "only a poor programmer would think that!"..

I'm not sure if persons with the skill are more disposed towards studying philosophy or the study of philosophy prompts the development and demonstration of that skill more, but hang out with the philosophy kids and you might come to refine this skill by social osmosis.

Yet it would not exist without the second group because it was started by an investment fund/startup incubator.

I agree with you, I love both perspectives and the passions they ignite. I am squarely in the first group, and I love reading about the real life realities of product design/management, pitching, etc.

People rarely switch from one to the other. It's part of our core ideals.

However, there is a large, vocal, percentage from both these groups that will always voice their opinion against an opposition opinion. It's not a competition and there's no correct answer. It's purely subjective.

Or else.

War begins!

A writer can have lots of poetry, personal expository essays, journals, unfinished drafts lying around OR s/he can "ship" a best-selling novel, publish a high-traffic blog or something.

Similarly, a painter would experiment with lots of techniques, colors, textures "on the side," again having lots of personal work lying around, yet would probably treat something s/he would put in an exhibition differently.

In the first case, you are experimenting, discovering, breathing; while in the second case you have to think hard about your audience, your readers, or your customers.

It's built-in.

There are also writers who can do all of these: my personal favourite is Robert Graves (possibly because once many years ago I got him to autograph his Selected Poems and his memoir Goodbye to all That).

I'm somewhere in the middle.

> HN is made up of two groups in ever constant warfare, the yin and yang, as it were-

> the group who thinks that programming should be fun, experimental and enjoyable, and

> the group that thinks that programming is a means to the end of getting a product to market and nothing more.

> For what it's worth, I think that both perspectives are valid. It depends only on your goals.