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I wrote this post before reading the parent; I've moved it to be a reply to the parent because it's clearly related. I have some cognitive dissonance on this i

I wrote this post before reading the parent; I've moved it to be a reply to the parent because it's clearly related. I have some cognitive dissonance on this issue. I'm not sure what to conclude, so I'll just air it. On the one hand, I would love to see people in the field who are both high-performing and high-functioning socially. On the other hand, the degree to which undergraduates (and, by extension, probably front-line programmers in general) "live and breathe CS" seems to be a very good heuristic for their proficiency with the nitty technical details. By "live and breathe" CS, I am not talking about passion for traditionally geeky activities like video games, DND, and so on; I am referring to their penchant for work as entertainment (not that we don't all need a break from time to time). This seems to preclude being a social individual who happens to do CS some of the time. On the third hand, lots of researchers I've met seem to be better rounded.

ErrantX 17y ago
> and, by extension, probably front-line programmers in general > This seems to preclude being a social individual who happens to do CS some of the time. The best programmers I know (and I tentatively include myself here; though Im really an engineer) are highly social work hard/play hard type people.
- barrkel 17y ago
  That is definitely not my experience.
- roundsquare 17y ago
  Might this might be a result of the type of people you spend time with? If I think about college, I would also have said that the best programmers I know are the ones who I frequently see out doing other stuff. However, I didn't spend that much time with the more introverted people (not being able to relate to them as well) so its hard to say if they were better or worse.
  - ErrantX 17y ago
    This is in a work environment too though. I was more interested by the use of "frontline" in the original posting. It's not so much technical merit as your ability to, well, be a programmer (as a career).

ErrantX 17y ago

> and, by extension, probably front-line programmers in general > This seems to preclude being a social individual who happens to do CS some of the time. The best programmers I know (and I tentatively include myself here; though Im really an engineer) are highly social work hard/play hard type people.

barrkel 17y ago
That is definitely not my experience.
roundsquare 17y ago
Might this might be a result of the type of people you spend time with? If I think about college, I would also have said that the best programmers I know are the ones who I frequently see out doing other stuff. However, I didn't spend that much time with the more introverted people (not being able to relate to them as well) so its hard to say if they were better or worse.
- ErrantX 17y ago
  This is in a work environment too though. I was more interested by the use of "frontline" in the original posting. It's not so much technical merit as your ability to, well, be a programmer (as a career).