Unclebob recently posted a blog post (Master Craftsman Teams) that has created a lot of ripple in the community.

In his post he details a way of working similar as described in Fred Brooks The Mythical Man Month (The Surgical Team), which I can only agree to IF there is a team of good people working together, or basically if you have the honor to be working side by side with a master and seasoned journeymen.

Although the ideas are not new, a lot of people had a very strong opinion to how Unclebob defined the ideal Master Craftsman Team. Actually this post was inspired by a tweet by Keith Braithwaite which I found very interesting…

Calvinism: who promoting it doesn’t believe themselves amongst the Elect? Soft. Craft: who promoting it doesn’t believe themselves a Master?

I can only agree to that statement as far as I can see how people reacted to Unclebob’s post. We talk a lot about Software Craftsmanship, as how we lack masters and how to set the path to mastery, but when it comes to the truth, the moment of truth, most people think that they have walked The Long Road already not realizing that most of us are at the very beginning of our journey.

There are masters out there, sure they are, but to be honest I would not be able to count many amongst the people I know about (not to mention having worked with any). Looking at this, I can only say that there seems to be masters in the world (Unclebob surely amongst them), but I cannot really point my finger at any saying “This man is a master software craftsman” with 100% accuracy.

Now, is this really the point? Do I have to be called a master by people around me to be proud? I guess that if people start thinking this way they have missed the point of the path to mastery. There is no point in claiming to be a master or a journeyman for that matter.

I myself would like to be called a journeyman or at least see myself as one. But to be honest, I haven’t meat a journeyman jet that has been called that by a known master (like Unclebob) that can say, “Yes, Enrique, you are a journeyman”. Does this matter at all? Not a bit, I am on my journey, I try my best to follow the path, make it part of my life and honor the craft as much as I can, and that, only that is what really matters.

As written in the book by George Leonard Mastery the you will need Instruction, Practice, Surrender, Intentionality and The Edge in your path to mastery.

Apprentice: How long will it take me to master the craft of software ?
Master: How long do you expect to live?