"The implied lesson here is to embrace constraints." Oy. I pretty much stopped reading here. This is what people said during the Great Transition from client-side applications (or client-server applications) to the web. *I* think the lesson is: embrace self discipline and good software engineering practices, in spite of the sexy new hotness of whatever latest technology or paradigm that comes along that's going to solve all your problems without the need for tedious thought.

Sigh. So, another blow for cowboy/hero coding is struck. "Documentation is haaard!" So... just give up? No. Documentation is essential. Sorry. If your code is clear, concise, self-documenting, that's great, I totally support that (and, even if it's not, I still want your source code), but I want to point out that that sort of lovely self-documenting code comes about because the coder thought of the person to come after, so that coder actually wrote DOCUMENTATION (it just happens to be executable). Coding in a furball, piling up hacks, refusing to document and then handing the whole steaming mess to somebody who asks questions is chickenshit. I have so had it with people using agile and "use the source, Luke" as an excuse for bad behavior. Yes, I know that if developers had the kind of social skills required for writing good documentation (as in: understanding the audience enough to know what questions they'll have, given that they're not an exact clone of you, the developer) they'd be something besides coders, but the answer is not "give up and tell 'em to read the code."

I'm with Matthew Kane and Bob T (figuratively). Really? And after you have a good fight with the other super-hot leading edge colonies of brilliant coders in your area over this guy, have fun with the warm body you hire overseas. No wonder American employers say there's no one good in this country. Sorry to be a curmudgeon.