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JF-Expert Member
- Jan 20, 2014
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As I was surfing around I saw this article and thought I should share and hear your views on it
Cowboy Coders are programmers who write code according to their own rules.
They may be very good at writing code, but it doesn't generally follow the standards, processes, policies, or anything else derived from the group.
Cowboy Coders work well alone, or in the old-style CaveProgrammer environment, but they rarely, if ever, work well in a team.
Often times, they are a burr in the saddle that keeps the team from getting positive work done.
The Cowboy Way:
- The speed with which I can hack something together determines my worth
- People who need comments in order to understand my code are too dumb to be working with me
- People who ask me questions about my code are too dumb to understand it, and (therefore) are too dumb to be working with me
- Other people's code is just crappy, but mine is self-descriptive and beautiful
- Exploiting a compiler-dependent language feature to save a line of code is "elegant"
- Other people on my team cause all of the bugs; I'm the one that fixes them
- My code is never at fault, always perfect, and I don't make mistakes
- Since my code is never at fault, I don't need to test it thoroughly, if at all
- Since my code is always perfect, it never needs to be refactored no matter how long it's been in the codebase or how much has changed around it
- Since I never make mistakes, I can yell at anyone else who does
- Since my code is perfect, if the program crashes due to unexpected data, it's the user's fault for entering bad data.
- Since my code is perfect, if the program fails after a minor machine configuration change, it's the sysadmins fault for changing it.
- Since my code is perfect, if the program runs too slowly, it's the managements fault for not providing a faster machine.