The Black Tower

The IvoryTower is where the theorists live. Unhindered by the chains of real feedback, they become less and less relevant to the outside world. Their skills deteriorate more rapidly than they know.

This is a rather laughable mischaracterization of academic work.
Only if you assume it to be directed at all academic work. It is a perfectly good characterization of some academic work.

TheBlackTower is where the unemployed live. Unable to locate and use real feedback, they become less and less relevant to the outside world. Their skills deteriorate more rapidly than they know.

''Ya know, I could have made the EXACT same statement here that was made about the ivory tower.

Certainly, SOME theorists are indeed disconnected from reality, and are purely useful only in the investigating of theoretical issues, not relating them to the real world. As long as others serve as a buffer and take their abstractions and to the relating work, all is well. When these sorts start sounding off about how to do things in the real word, BAD KARMA is sure to follow. However, SOME theorists DO keep track of the real world, and are competent to open their mouths and talk about taking novel ideas and implementing them in the practical and applied dirty nasty gritty sweaty gotta make a profit this quarter or we are DOOMED world. -- KirkBailey''

As a resident of TheBlackTower, I am constantly wondering if my ideas are genuinely good, or just illusionarily good. The remembrance of working on code with a team is fading.

Sigh.

Who wrote this one? -- KirkBailey

Solutions?

We need a way to escape from the towers to the real world. Or, if that fails, at least we need a telephone so that we can occasionally chat with the others.

Examples:

OpenSource work. This is fairly good for the technical side, though most of what you learn about methodologies or working with a team is not usable. (Note: Everyone wishes they had better testing. If you want to practice some unit/acceptance testing, it will generally be much appreciated.)
Voluntary Work. If you have been in the Black Tower (or even an Ivory Tower) for some time, this may be a solution. This could range from doing a couple of hours work for a charity to signing up for a long period with something like the V.S.O. (in the UK) or the Peace Corps (in the US). Both can use computer professionals, and are both valued on resumes.
Get New Skills. Something employers actually want. This changes over time so you also need to adapt. On the plus side, if your skills are no longer in demand, it doesn't matter if they deteriorate. Without feedback it is hard to tell what skills are the most useful.

Perhaps it's more like BlackDungeon? rather than a tower.

Towers can be prisons too...

The word dungeon originally meant the tower. The French word was donjon. Then it came to mean the dark place in the tower where the lord put people who were to be forgotten, called the oubliette. Warwick Castle has a good example of a dungeon. -- JohnFletcher

No, that's working as a code slave for The Dark Lord, Bill Gates. THAT is durance vile. sure, there's paychecks, benefits, plants, music, A/C, cubicles out the wazoo, lots of shiny buildings, nice landscaping, and elevator music. And also, a would be monopoly, NSA backdoors, endless security flaws with patches containing new ones, wasteful inefficient code, and a horde of vampire lawyers wielding EULA's which were written by legal vampires of hell. Evil sometimes comes in a 3 piece suit with a REALLY nice briefcase. -- DeliberatusFreeman?