Press releases

Some problems you work around, but even with a work-around for a problem, it can still end up limiting you. You may decide that you don't care about that limit, you will always stay below that point, but how much of that is really that you don't (and never will) care, and how much is trying to put a good face on reality when you would otherwise feel trapped?

Lack of communication skills will definitely put a glass ceiling on your career, and you may not ever realize that it's doing so. This is the case even if you don't want to do any management type stuff.

And note that by communication skills I am talking about the ability to get your point across clearly and unambiguously. This is not talking about PC and politeness (although a lack of politeness can be an issue). If you look at many of our superstar programmers in the open source world, you will find that they are all pretty good at this communication thing, even if they are using it to send flames your way.