So what should you do? Well, we've established that if you simply disagree with (or don't know) the problem that developers think they have, then you'll most likely end up frustrated, demoralized, and possibly even out of a job. So what's the solution? Should you just do whatever the developers tell you to do? After all, that would probably make them happy and keep you employed and all that.
Well, yes, you will accomplish that (keeping your job and making some people happy)…well, maybe for a little while. You see, this approach is actually very shortsighted. If the developers you are working with knew exactly how to resolve the situation they are in, it's probable that they would never have gotten themselves into it in the first place.
That isn't always true – sometimes you're working with a new group of people who have taken over an old codebase, but in that case then usually this new group is the "productivity worker" that I'm talking about, or maybe you are one of...