RE: what you look for in a coder...

> I don t really  agree with the conclusion , and the history of Mr Carmack
> is the best example (note that i don t know very much about his personnal
> history), IMO we need those cowboys and they re perfect for jobs like lead
> coder .
>

You must have a significantly different definition of 'lead coder' than I
do. A "lead" as the word implies needs to lead the rest of the team in a way
that they can follow. Noel's definition of cowboy makes clear that won't
happen. A 'hero' (again, by his definition) maybe can. Of course these, like
all categories of people, allow for a lot of spillover. If you have a very
competent team, there's room for more cowboy-style coding, because no-one
will be in a position where they can't handle the code. But in most cases,
having a consistent design philosophy throughout the code that's transparent
and easy to follow will make the team as a whole more capable. It's easier
to discuss how each person's tasks can be accomplished if the system's
constructed more simply. Someone once told me that Seymour Cray's big
advantage was that he could hold mental images of larger circuits than
anyone else; it seems a good metaphor for coders too. The interfaces between
components are ideally a lot simpler than the inner workings of those
components - and I suspect that's one characteristic of cowboys: their
systems are bigger and have more internal complexity.
  You can have a cowboy on the team, as long as the real lead can do his
job - which is ensuring that everyone's work integrates well into the common
code base. So the lead better be damn near as good a coder as the cowboy,
without the loner traits, as well as having all the 'people skills' to
manage the personality issues that will certainly arise.

Peter





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