10 Types of Programmers
 

A humourous look at the 10 types of programmers you may encounter. Indulge yourself!

Original PDF: http://i.i.com.com/cnwk.1d/i/tr/down...rogrammers.pdf
(Uploaded as well just in case it disappears overnight as many do.)

I think The Ninja best describes me :-)

I'd like to think that I'm a cross between the Ninja and the Paratrooper programmers. Quite an interesting fusion I think. :-)

nice article :-) i guess based on my day to day work im closer to be a Paratrooper, but i gotta admit i have a little of them all *!*

I think I'm in the same category. I like to surprise people with fixes for things and also think I'm quite fast on learning frameworks/infrastructures to work with.

The Paratrooper is a good one, but I also like to think I have the patience to see a project through :-( ! Not just a hear today gone tomorrow kinda programmer.

I didnt really fall into any category i dont think. kinda a mix between the code cowboy, paratrooper and ninja. nice little article.

I'd have to say that I'm a Code Cowboy. Many a time I've been coding away all day to then relize that I hadn't checked anything back into Sourcesafe for the entire time.

Alan

From the other thread:

I'm a mix between a Code Cowboy, a Paratrooper, and most of all a Mediocre Man.

We have a double-post? Who's the culprit? Prepare the gallow :-) !

Ack! Runaway!

Well, it was Alan, but Salathe already directed us to this one. :)

I think the The Martyr describes me best lol

The Paratrooper and al00t of the The Evangelist describes me best. Although The Evanelist has a lot of base touching arguments there.

I have some tendencies of
-Gandolf
-The Theoretician (Although I am goo at software dev now)
-Paratrooper
-When a deeadline is too near, code cowboy

Most of my downsides come with gandolf and the nagging of the the Theoretician.

They left out a few types that I have noticed. I have encountered most of these personally.

11. The know it all
Has been programming in almost every low level language out there since he could read. He knows everything there is to know about programming and design. However, when it comes to preferences you cant do anything besides what he wants. He will endlessly lecture you on how your personal style in inferior for no good reason should you use a different indentation style them him.

12. Jack Bauer
Doesn't know all the fancies of a the language, but can get whatever job done using the lower level components of a language (that is not the same as the best methods). His logic and way of thinking though things is what gets him though the tough jobs, he could probably land a plane on his first try if he wanted to. His downside is that he doesn't know how to do much and will write 20 lines of simple code because he doesn't know how to use that query. As such, his code is hard to read due to its length and hard to modify because you will break something.

13. The wannabe genius
May or may not be good at what they do. But at first glance at their code (and comments, and documentation), you say "Wow, that looks advanced!" The code in reality is a jumbled mess that is seemingly intentionally made long to look advanced. Their only real upside is that you don't need to encrypt the source to keep others paws off of it. It is so hard to read you could build it 10 times before you know what his code does. Then just when you think you know whats going on, you made a simple modification and everything goes to hell. You realize you need to rebuild it all. You know a programmer has fell victim of these when he is running in the street screaming "WHY ME!" and pulling his hair out.



And finally
The retard
These are generally found alone because no one will hire them. Their code is incoherent, messy, buggy and useless. You ask youself why you didn't just grab a panda bear and have him do it, random letters would be better then this! They cant do anything without making it into a long process. They think they are experts, but when you ask them why no comments in the script, he asks you what a comment is. This is the most common type of programmer in the freelance world, they are generally quite young (generally) and always arrogant. Upsides? They make all the other types look better, now downside they have is as bad as this guy.

I will add more if I think of more.

Heh, I enjoyed this little article; sorry for being late to the party. I'm a cross between both The Evangelist and The Ninja. An odd mix to be sure.

The reason I qualify for The Evangelist is because since day one of working with my employer I recommended that we ditch CGI binaries for something more abstract in the interface. Like PHP. ;-) That way when (not if, something will always go wrong) the back end crashes the front end stays put! They're finally starting to listen too, after roughly ten months and the parallel advice of a pricey consultant.

If only people would actually stop being so blinkered, Robert! And consider other possibilities. More often than not the grass is greener on the other side.

I may regret turning this political. But when I see that picture, the name "Al Gore" springs to mind.