I agree with everything you say, but would also like to add that the level of passion and 'pride' which programmers have seems to vary by specialization. I work in embedded systems, where having well-factored code, with well thought-out scope is the anomaly, not the rule.
> I work in embedded systems, where having well-factored code, with well thought-out scope is the anomaly, not the rule.
I had always romanticised embedded programming is being the domain of tightly written, well thought out code. I figured there was much less "room for error", so there'd be more scrutiny per functionality. That's been your experience across a few companies?
Embedded software can be very tightly written, with large sections of code written in assembly to save a few instructions, and other portions of code loaded into RAM for faster execution.
There are also quite a few programmers who couldn't 'cut it' in web programming, and went over to embedded, where they wreak havoc on small low-cost devices, and another group of programmers who somehow 'fell into' embedded programming many years ago, and have not updated their skills since.
