Is This Your Web Developer?

Cute! Now this is an interesting analysis of the typical (?) web-development persona you might encounter in the tech world.  I certainly know this guy… Excerpted from the Stubbornella blog hosted by Nicole Sullivan.

The code cowboy

• Stays up all night recoding the entire code base, documents nothing, and forbids anyone to touch it because they aren’t good enough to understand his level of code.
• Refuses meetings, chats, or any other form of communication.
• Cares more about being perceived as the brilliant-uber-genius than he does about his team working well together.
• Gets into silly pissing contests which boil down to “hehe, my brain is bigger than yours”.
• Finds complex solutions to problems, thus proving his brilliance.
• Makes a lot of mistakes due to lack of sleep, overcaffination, and ego — but thank god he is around to save the day when the bug is discovered.
• Is fairly certain clients, PMs, designers, and really anyone he has to deal with on a daily basis is at least three standard deviations below his IQ.
• Jumps to say “me, me, me!” when credit or rewards for accomplishments are offered.
• Jumps to say “me, me, me!” when opportunities to attend or speak at conferences arise.

The good developer

• Digs the fact that he is making products for people. Likes people and enjoys communicating with them and understanding how they think. Can put him or herself in other people’s shoes and reliably imagine how they might react to different parts of the UI.
• An excellent problem solver who takes into account all aspects of a challenge when designing a solution – including human elements like maintainability and usability.
• Shares credit with the entire team or entire internets. Recognizes that no solution evolves in a vacuum.
• Applies consistent effort and recognizes that working in a way that promotes long term productivity will yield better results.
• Respects the members of his team, including those who aren’t engineers.
• Manages projects so they don’t require super human feats of sleeplessness to meet deadlines.
• Has a life outside of work, other interests, friends, and family — they love code, but they love lots of other things too. If you don’t understand how this makes them a better developer, see item #1.
• Amazing capacity for abstraction and creative thinking.

Care to comment? I’d love to share your experiences in an upcoming blog or future book project.

- Colette