I'd go more along the philosophy of "you are what you read" when it comes to development. No one knows everything (or anything for that matter) so you should constantly try to better yourself.
That site has a really nice design, and it even works in IE6.
> Does "You are what you eat" apply to developing?
No. Most of us who develop software do so in a job or for a client. That determines the priorities. Will it be good, cheap or fast? Most developers have to do it cheap and fast.
Most people have control over their own diet. Unless your doctor or partner tells you otherwise, you can stuff yourself with twinkies.
It depends on who you're working for (how top-down or bottom-up the company is) and how autonomous you are. Doing things cheaply and quickly, even in a web startup is shortsighted. Sometimes you have to spend money to make money. Sometimes big, interesting projects take time (think IBM developing Watson). I'm not discounting agile methods — the things you choose to do should be done efficiently, but they shouldn't be done poorly.
Perhaps I don't disagree with your comment that "most" developers have to do things cheaply and quickly, but I think most anyone has ability to speak up in their environment and push for the changes they think are important. I've worked at a big, sprawling company and was still able to work against the grain and push back on requirements and things I didn't think made sense. I'm working at a company now where I can do the same things (this time with less pushback).
If you change your perspective from controlling your job or your company to controlling yourself and your career, then it makes it easier to pull back and make the decisions that make sense for you and the things you want to work on. Then the places you work at are just the vessels and opportunities to turn your ideas into reality. The onus is on you to determine your career — not your company's.
Unless you have 0 savings, with average skill and above-average ambition you can choose what to work on, within reasonable limits (you can't go from PHP to programming space shuttles). And if you no one wants to pay to do what you want, do it on your own time. This will either result in a startup or persuading someone to pay you for the same type of work.
I like the ending point about 28k breakfasts as motivation to make them couunt.
A mentor once told me, "look it takes 7-10 years to build and exit a company. You're 35. If you're successful, you'll probably only do 2-3 significant companies before you retire to angel investing or whatever, so choose the businesses carefully."
With regard to side projects, the most important category for me is a "the work is challenging" and "time is budgeted for ideas and thoughts". If I'm going to take up a side project, it's not going to be for money. I'd rather learn a new skill or get better at something I already do.
