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The Difference Between The Clever Developer & The Wise Developer

Ben "The Hosk" Hosking
ITNEXT
Published in
5 min readSep 5, 2022

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Devs

“There is no greater fool than he who thinks himself wise; no one wiser than he who suspects he is a fool.” Marguerite de Valois

Most developers are clever at writing code, in many situations the cleverness is a strength and a weakness.

Common sense, street smarts and experience can help developers avoid problems rather than solving them. Knowing when to reach for code and when to reject a requirement.

Knowing when to keep silent, when to fight and when to run and hide gives the wise (senior) developer the advantage over the clever (junior) developer.

What's the difference between clever and wise?

Developers spend only 50 percent of their time writing code

  • Junior developers take simple requirements and create complex code
  • Senior developers take complex requirements and create simple code

In general senior developers are wise and junior developers are clever but haven’t made the mistakes yet to be wise. The difference between junior developers…

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Published in ITNEXT

ITNEXT is a platform for IT developers & software engineers to share knowledge, connect, collaborate, learn and experience next-gen technologies.

Written by Ben "The Hosk" Hosking

Technology philosopher | Software dev → Solution architect | Avid reader | Life long learner

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