for me you post are 'view from the other side' and I appreciate you for this ability to look at the problem under the different angle (and new object to meditation)

Mike, I use strictly filtered skills list (maybe too filtered) but I use this trick for a reason: I just try to add direction to my career (hm and life in case of how many hours I spend at work).

Growing/getting new programming skills are not easy life style, isn't it? And (for me at least) only stable interest (if word fun is sound's so untrusted for you) in this area save my brain from melting. :) Really i can not imagine programmer with 10+ experience who lost fun from job and stay hm.. programmer (IT career for coders are limited).

That's the reason to start looking only advanced and interesting project and not continually work on bug fixing for poor coded applications. Working with hm... fun :) does not lead to brain melting and give you (me) ability work longer on most advanced and challenged projects.

I am not try to encourage use right tool, no! Otherway - I am waiting from project leader to encourage ME use right tools and advanced styles - stagnation in project and speedup development lead to problem with core development team and loosing most experienced programmers.

Too many words - too hard to describe feeling :( , i wrote this post in try to get advice how to balance... stay afloat and does not lost myself...

p.s.: and yes one more thing to share: i see cobol (or assembler or .. extend you list of lang. which popularity are over) programmers who work only at support tasks and stop advance at all, they are: skilled and stable professionals (and very pleasant to manage)... who stop get fun from programming - i does not wish some things for perl community. Several years ago perl back to market with some new and advanced tools - and i wish to support this perl coding reincarnation. yes i understand how small my experience and force in all perl community, really what i can change? At least start using this new ideas in my work... (drop hollows out a stone)

To me, the real pleasure is in knowing that what I am doing is seriously helping someone else ... whether that is designing a new application, or the overhaul and repurposing of an existing one.   (Usually, it is the latter.)   The work may or may not involve me personally writing source-code.   I guess that, most of the time, I am the “project leader” that you speak of, and I do of course strive to be decent at it.

Here’s one thought to put into your smoking-pipe ... if you find yourself thinking in this way, then perhaps “a very-strict focus on source-code writing” is not the best career-track for you!   There are lots and lots of “angles” in this business, and one of these angles can be very-generally split between a “computer focus” and a “business/customer focus.”   Many of us find ourselves routinely wearing both hats, yet we also generally find that we trend toward one vs. the other.   (Do you trend toward bits ’n bytes, or people?)   The good news is, you work in an industry that’s broad enough to allow you to have such a choice.   Think about it ... there just aren’t that many industries that you can truthfully say such things about.

If “what really lights your LAMP”   ;-)   is “slinging source-code,” then that’s great ... and you are going to be slinging a lot of code that you didn’t originally write.   If, thirty years later (ahem ...), you still feel that way, cool also.   But maybe you will find that other aspects of the business are even more “fun” for you ... and, most likely, your tastes will change.   You may one day find that your core skills are, or have become, something different than where they started.

That, to me, is the real beauty of this line of work ... it never grows old or stale.   It also doesn’t seal you into a single box.   (OMG! .. I could have been an accountant!!)   The pragmatic need for it, in all of its many aspects, is only increasing day-by-day, even as it becomes more diverse.   Within it, you can therefore find the niche that you prefer ... and, as time goes by, you can also maneuver to another one.   It’s All Good,™ and, “is that cool, or what?”

“Dude(tte), if you are in data processing, in these(!) days and times, and you are not ‘having fun,’ then ... you are doing something way-seriously wrong!”