Comment Eisenhower said it (Score 3, Interesting) 214
I tell this story to illustrate the truth of the statement I heard long ago in the Army: Plans are worthless, but planning is everything. There is a very great distinction because when you are planning for an emergency you must start with this one thing: the very definition of "emergency" is that it is unexpected, therefore it is not going to happen the way you are planning.
there's nothing like a real life emergency in programming but business culture is "get this done yesterday." no one can do that. but some programmers are very fragile and can only function according to one set of requirements/ work environment/ speed, and if you mess with that they get angry/ stressed/ tune out/ burnt out. while the "rock stars" can react to sudden and dramatic changes of requirement and need and crank out the changes relatively adroitly (not necessarily quickly). a sort of suppleness of mind and eerie lack of stress that's more about personality than training. and i say personality, and not training, because their code is a reflection of their personality: you can throw a curve ball at it from any direction and it can adapt without falling to pieces when "little" things (it's never little) change
your code is a reflection of how your mind works. which is your personality. and certain chilly stress proof people can generate flexible durable code that is almost like the redundancy and flexibility of logistics in war