Nice article! I agree with most of the points here, but I don't necessarily agree with some of the points within the innovation/creativity section. Yes innovation and creativity are important, and have their uses. However, I think there can be a lot of overhead and misplaced value on thinking of new ways to solve an old problem. Part of being a great developer is understanding existing design patterns within code and applying the most appropriate at the correct time. Consider authentication, a fairly old problem, "We need to allow users to create accounts and log into the application, and stop anyone not logged in from accessing the app". You could spend hours/days thinking up a new innovative solution to this problem, however there are many fantastic authentication libraries for any tech stack and that have been battle tested which will give you an array of benefits, such as extra robustness, usually more experienced maintainers of the library, greater security and often with clients/bosses the most important one, fastest ship speed. That's not to say innovation/creativity isn't important to have, it most definitely is, but it's situational - knowing when to innovate and when to use existing solutions is equally important - part of that critical thinking skill!
Nice article! I agree with most of the points here, but I don't necessarily agree with some of the points within the innovation/creativity section. Yes innovation and creativity are important, and have their uses. However, I think there can be a lot of overhead and misplaced value on thinking of new ways to solve an old problem. Part of being a great developer is understanding existing design patterns within code and applying the most appropriate at the correct time. Consider authentication, a fairly old problem, "We need to allow users to create accounts and log into the application, and stop anyone not logged in from accessing the app". You could spend hours/days thinking up a new innovative solution to this problem, however there are many fantastic authentication libraries for any tech stack and that have been battle tested which will give you an array of benefits, such as extra robustness, usually more experienced maintainers of the library, greater security and often with clients/bosses the most important one, fastest ship speed. That's not to say innovation/creativity isn't important to have, it most definitely is, but it's situational - knowing when to innovate and when to use existing solutions is equally important - part of that critical thinking skill!
Of course you make sense what I mean is that anywhere a new solution would give you an advantage you it's definitely worth the hassle