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Are Quirky Developers Brilliant or Dangerous?

5 points by KiwiNige 18y ago

sunkencity 18y ago
My experience is that developers who think they are gods gift to programming have too little self-doubt / introspection to: 1. produce code usable for others 2. solve problems in a simple and sustainable way - since they are so great, anything they do must be good... solutions tend to be cryptic
- MoeDrippins 18y ago
  Amen to that. The best programmers I've ever been around both get the problems solved, and leave a legacy that can be followed, adapted, and replicated. Could be that it's my context, (which is dull and businessy), but 99% of the programming I'm around is NOT flashy or "revolutionary", but rather providing a solution for a customer.
danbmil99 18y ago
Duh? They're both.
- noonespecial 18y ago
  Like plutonium. Managed safely, they can generate results that are impossible any other way. Managed poorly, on the other hand...
  - dazzawazza 18y ago
    ... and either way they leave a mess that takes a generation to contain/cleanup/hide.
mkuhn 18y ago
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=518250 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=518250
deleted 18y ago
[deleted]
herval 18y ago
"The same developer who wasn’t quite the team player is now the one who management elevates to the head of the pack." actually what I see the most in EVERY company I ever worked on is quite the contrary: the incompetent are the first to be promoted to heads of the pack...
- bingaman 18y ago
  If you can't code, maybe you can manage. I've seen this happen in larger organizations as well.
extension 18y ago
There is no absolute standard for "readable" code. I have served in positions where recursion, lambda expressions and short circuit evaluation were considered clever hacks requiring documentation and got me branded as a troublemaker. Ideally, readability standards would be made an explicit part of team/project policy but it's difficult to define that standard without taking things for granted. Being a smelly jerk is certainly also a problem, but an orthagonal one. Stereotypes are more dangerous than quirky developers. Though they are often found together, don't conflate aptitude with eccentricity or grooming.

5 points by KiwiNige 18y ago

My experience is that developers who think they are gods gift to programming have too little self-doubt / introspection to: 1. produce code usable for others 2. solve problems in a simple and sustainable way - since they are so great, anything they do must be good... solutions tend to be cryptic

MoeDrippins 18y ago
Amen to that. The best programmers I've ever been around both get the problems solved, and leave a legacy that can be followed, adapted, and replicated. Could be that it's my context, (which is dull and businessy), but 99% of the programming I'm around is NOT flashy or "revolutionary", but rather providing a solution for a customer.

danbmil99 18y ago

Duh? They're both.

noonespecial 18y ago
Like plutonium. Managed safely, they can generate results that are impossible any other way. Managed poorly, on the other hand...
- dazzawazza 18y ago
  ... and either way they leave a mess that takes a generation to contain/cleanup/hide.

mkuhn 18y ago

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=518250 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=518250

deleted 18y ago

[deleted]

herval 18y ago

"The same developer who wasn’t quite the team player is now the one who management elevates to the head of the pack." actually what I see the most in EVERY company I ever worked on is quite the contrary: the incompetent are the first to be promoted to heads of the pack...

bingaman 18y ago
If you can't code, maybe you can manage. I've seen this happen in larger organizations as well.

extension 18y ago

There is no absolute standard for "readable" code. I have served in positions where recursion, lambda expressions and short circuit evaluation were considered clever hacks requiring documentation and got me branded as a troublemaker. Ideally, readability standards would be made an explicit part of team/project policy but it's difficult to define that standard without taking things for granted. Being a smelly jerk is certainly also a problem, but an orthagonal one. Stereotypes are more dangerous than quirky developers. Though they are often found together, don't conflate aptitude with eccentricity or grooming.