Some Needed Clarification

Now, before continuing the discussion of nothingburger-ism I should make one point clear. By no means am I saying here that the only thing anybody can do of any value in a software project is write code. In fact, it is frequently the case where the most value that can be added at a given point is by doing things other than coding. For example, most (pretty much all) open source projects are sorely in need of better documentation than what they have.

In a military campaign, only a minority of the personnel are front-line combat troops. That is not the issue at hand. It would be more like pointing out that there is something screwy going on if you have an army in which everybody is a staff officer and nobody is a regular soldier.