The tone of these types of posts always make me chuckle. And, I see similar types of articles on here often. When I read these, I feel like Dad is mad at me for being a bad programmer.
It's much easier for many people to come up with these articles than it is to write something technical.
I write code since forever, addicted to it. I happen to be in a field that pays good money for my addiction. So far, despite the stupidity of the profession, things turn out mostly OK. Why does someone pay me? Don't care. As long as the relationship is beneficial to me, it's OK. I feel I have more in common with starving artists in other fields, than some corporate official looking out for business interests. So I'd be a starving programmer in a parallel world where programming is not a hot profession. Now, if I had my own business, then I brought all these nontechnical issues upon myself. But then, I'll pay myself for whatever reason I want.
One time, it came the day I was supposed to enter the job market. So I looked at what companies - around me and worldwide - are doing, I read the stuff about "solving business problems" instead of "just writing code"... and I realized that if I were to really care about this, I would be unemployable. Because most of the "business needs" in our industry are trivial bullshit stuff that's at best neutral (more often harmful) to society, and only exists to make money for some entrepreneur. I don't give a shit, and will never give a shit about those problems. So - through many years of depression and burnout - I learned to ignore most of the business goals and focus on doing my part the best I can.
For example, right now I'm paid for developing an application that shouldn't really exist in the first place, and makes little sense to anyone - not to developers, not to people who will end up uing it - except the management. But well, management decides. So if I'm making this application anyway, I'm focusing on making it as useful as possible. Management asks for features. I do the ones that make sense and politely suggest changes in the ones that are idiotic. They're happy. I'm paid. When they're not looking, I'm venting out on HackerNews.
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So yeah, to people constantly writing about focusing on delivering business values: please tell me how to look for values worth delivering, in the sea of moral bankrupcy the current job market is.
Now, if I was a partner in a business with some equity stake, then I would mop the floors if that's what I felt would increase the value of my stake. But as a wage worker, when you tell me to mop the floor, I tell you "that's not my fucking job".
People act in their own self interest. Why is this so god damn difficult to understand? Fuck!
1. Leaky abstractions 2. Software bloat (using a massive framework to solve a simple problem) 3. Oops, I picked a lemon, now lets roll back all that glue code. 4. Code dependencies. 5. Upgrade hell.
It's a fad, it too shall pass, assuming programmers still remember how to program non-trivial things after the fad.