What makes a good coder?

[garote]

In a couple of job interviews I've been asked, "what makes you a good computer programmer" and I've been delighted to reply with, "well, it's basically this: I'm lazy, stubborn, and suspicious."

Then I go on to explain that being lazy motivates me to automate things so I only need to do them once, being stubborn motivates me to solve difficult problems because I hate giving up, and being suspicious motivates me to write tests and verify things, catching errors that would otherwise be totally baffling. From my worst traits emerged some of my best ones. How much time did I lose, as a young person, believing I was a lost cause? I can't tell; it's all gone a bit fuzzy now that I'm 40. But more than I needed to, I assume.

Comments

[aquestrian.livejournal.com]

I love this.

[pigshitpoet.livejournal.com]

thanks for explaining what is meant by lazy in code world. you hit a nerve in me. it irks me that bill gates is rich and never coded shit in his life that worked properly. he paid other peeps to do his dirty work. that is what i called lazy on one occasion, and was blasted for saying it because gates is of course a god and can do no wrong. money buys a lot of failback. i want my money back for all the dysfunction i've put up with in my life from microshit, i mean soft, and others. soul sucking vampires. i also hated gates in the steve jobs movie. jobs at least had vision, gates just had his head up his ass like the typewriter in naked lunch.

i'm not a code warrior, and i believe programmers become lazy ignoring human ergonomics for some trumped up ideal mathematics and profit, like art for art's sake, you know, just to see data flow. wysiwyg would work for visual learners such as artists. when engineers make graphic programs, instead they build them like typewriter menus. artists don't think like that. they intuit. i am an artist, i am highly visual. sorry to be so critical. it's not you, it's me. i've just had it with adobe and microsoft. both anal conflagrations and a blight on this planet.

thanks for listening..

good luck with job hunting.
; '

[garote]

I'm not job hunting right now - just feeling introspective. :)

I know what you mean about the atrocious design sense of Microsoft products. The best I can say about them is that once you learn all their weird voodoo, you can get around and past them to other people's software easily enough...

I'm still shaking my head about their smartphone thing. It went way up into shipping hardware and multiple software revisions and then crashed all the way down to nothingness.

[pigshitpoet.livejournal.com]

microsoft started some game building projects up here trying to capitalize on the game markets of electronic arts and others, in million dollar spaces they crashed. my son was on one of the teams and decided to get out and build his own game.

[bluepapercup]

An interesting approach. How is it generally received by your interviewers?

[garote]

Both times they were fellow engineers, and laughed at the truth behind the joke. It's probably not the sort of thing I would say right off the bat to a manager. :D