I agree with Rick on this. Book writers and good speakers do not
necessarily make good developers. I've met plenty of people who are
brilliant, great speakers, charismatic, but cant produce a product
because its too 'boring' to them.
And thats great if what you want out of the person is some
RE: The clear path to being the exception to the ceiling is to become a "poster
child" for an open source project or a particular technology. E.G. become a
major committer for Grails or something that demonstrates competence. Write a
book. Become the de facto speaker on a topic/technology at No
