No, Fear (within bounds) is very much a necessity for a good programmer. It makes him/her think hard before doing anything. As the saying goes; "there is a fine

No, Fear (within bounds) is very much a necessity for a good programmer. It makes him/her think hard before doing anything. As the saying goes; "there is a fine line between bravery and stupidity". There is nothing worse than some smart-aleck programmer being all gung-ho and willy-nilly refactoring/rewriting code as they see fit when they don't understand the complete system yet. Only if the entire system design can be held in your head (possible if you were part of the original design team and stayed with the product through its evolution) can you afford to be truly "Fearless".