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Recently I tried to come up with a theory of developer quirkiness. Three possible explanations: theory 1) Weird people are attracted to software development

Recently I tried to come up with a theory of developer quirkiness. Three possible explanations: theory 1) Weird people are attracted to software development because they can interact with machines instead of people. Theory 2) The traits that make someone a good developer and the traits that make someone quirky are correlated. People who are good at abstract problem solving tend to be less adapt at social interaction. Theory 3) Developers are actually normal. It's the business people who are weird. They are forced to create an unnatural facade in order to present themselves to external clients and partners. Eventually, that facade becomes them. Developers do not need to interact outside the company, and are judged based on what they get done. Therefore they are free to be their natural selves. Since I am a developer, of course I believe that Theory 3 is correct :-)

cema 17y ago
I concur, theory 3 is the winner.
echaozh 17y ago
So, by theory 1, animal trainers in the circus should be weird. I think this somewhat proves it. People daring to put their heads into the mouth of a lion or crocodile is not unweird in my opinion.
cake 17y ago
I have the same as number 2. I think that good programmers tend to be introverts with a bit of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder amongst others traits. Those are clearly not social facilitators but they really help in the job when you have to internalize a whole program to find a bug or add a feature without breaking everything.
ovi256 17y ago
These are are hypotheses, not theories, as you have not proved them.
tetha 17y ago
I'd be an example to support #2. I basically like to interact with few other things, as this gives me the ability to focus on each of them, so I can understand and react to them better. If the other person is a human or a program, solving an interesting problem is kind of secondary in this case. (I didn't need to proof I'm weird, I know, but I did :P) Probably that is the reason why I'm bad at smalltalk, either, (by the current filters, which are getting worked on) too little information for too much communication.

cema 17y ago

I concur, theory 3 is the winner.

echaozh 17y ago

So, by theory 1, animal trainers in the circus should be weird. I think this somewhat proves it. People daring to put their heads into the mouth of a lion or crocodile is not unweird in my opinion.

cake 17y ago

I have the same as number 2. I think that good programmers tend to be introverts with a bit of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder amongst others traits. Those are clearly not social facilitators but they really help in the job when you have to internalize a whole program to find a bug or add a feature without breaking everything.

ovi256 17y ago

These are are hypotheses, not theories, as you have not proved them.

tetha 17y ago

I'd be an example to support #2. I basically like to interact with few other things, as this gives me the ability to focus on each of them, so I can understand and react to them better. If the other person is a human or a program, solving an interesting problem is kind of secondary in this case. (I didn't need to proof I'm weird, I know, but I did :P) Probably that is the reason why I'm bad at smalltalk, either, (by the current filters, which are getting worked on) too little information for too much communication.