Good programmers should be sacked!

[WKnight]

There is a school of thought that the character traits needed to make a good programmer are the same traits that make them poor team players.

Therefore, if you have a team environment, the last thing you want is a scattering of good programmers doing their own thing and being unable to talk to each other.

So the question is: what character traits make good programmers and are those traits good in all programming situations.

Small print: opinions expressed here might get you a mention on the CUK front page tomorrow!

[AtW]

Good programmer is a programmer with "can do" attitude - he may whine about things, but he gets stuff done regardless of circumstances (well, fatal wound would probably qualify as force major). Naturally in order to minimise chance of disruption good programmer will aim to avoid dependencies on others and only accept them when absolutely necessary.

[Fleetwood]

a) "Can do" attitude (I agree with AtW... for once)
b) Clear, legible, commented code
c) Tests extenstively before delivering to test team/production.
d) KISS philosophy.

[Jabberwocky]

Micro-optimisation is the key: a good programmer rewrites the compiler for each application in order to generate optimal machine code for the target processor.

[milanbenes]

ok,

I agree with this 100% the genius programmer who is not a team player is no use to anybody

better to have a team of 50%'ers that work together than a few bad apples thinking they run the show

not only programmers, same for people like Unix admins, hiding behind their command lines and their volume groups

Milan.

[DaveB]

Platts Dictum :
"Managing programmers is like herding cats."

Grahams Corollary :
"Do not meddle in the affairs of cats, for they are subtle and will piss on your comupter."

[Jabberwocky]

d) KISS philosophy.

KISS my ass philosophy.

[Fleetwood]

Micro-optimisation is the key: a good programmer rewrites the compiler for each application in order to generate optimal machine code for the target processor.

Too true.
I worked with a guy who invented his own programming language for one application. Interpreted, not complied, though.

[DimPrawn]

Laziness, Impatience, Hubris

"We will encourage you to develop the three great virtues of a programmer:
Laziness, Impatience, and Hubris."

LAZINESS: The quality that makes you go to great effort to reduce overall energy
expenditure. It makes you write labor-saving programs that other people will find
useful, and document what you wrote so you don't have to answer so many
questions about it. Hence, the first great virtue of a programmer.

IMPATIENCE: The anger you feel when the computer is being lazy. This makes you
write programs that don't just react to your needs, but actually anticipate them. Or
at least that pretend to. Hence, the second great virtue of a programmer.

HUBRIS: Excessive pride, the sort of thing Zeus zaps you for. Also the quality that
makes you write (and maintain) programs that other people won't want to say bad
things about. Hence, the third great virtue of a programmer.

HTH

[AtW]

This makes you
write programs that don't just react to your needs, but actually anticipate them. Or
at least that pretend to. Hence, the second great virtue of a programmer.

Is this how Microsoft's Paperclip came about?