Are You a Blue Collar or White Collar Developer?

#1

Post by rob_r0 » Mon, Dec 21, 2009, 12:03 AM UTC

Are You a Blue Collar or White Collar Developer?
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Re: Are You a Blue Collar or White Collar Developer?

#2

Post by gfodor » Mon, Dec 21, 2009, 1:12 AM UTC

This dynamic is a perfect example why you have to have unianimous enthusiasm for new team hires. The lack of respect for one another is astounding: I'd be shocked if they ever shipped any software together.

Re: Are You a Blue Collar or White Collar Developer?

#3

Post by seldo » Mon, Dec 21, 2009, 2:54 AM UTC

I think there is definitely a difference in personality types between "Computer Science" people and "software engineers", which the author is characterizing as white and blue collar. However, I think the white/blue distinction carries overtones of a class difference which isn't necessary.

A good engineering team needs CS people to be the "architecture astronauts" and pure engineers to keep them grounded and make sure something actually ships. Too many CS guys and you ship something needlessly complicated far too late; too many engineers and you ship spaghetti code that doesn't scale, because they're focused on results rather than architecture.

Re: Are You a Blue Collar or White Collar Developer?

#4

Post by skawaii » Mon, Dec 21, 2009, 3:47 AM UTC

Overall, the article was pretty good. I think the conclusion is right on (just get some enthusiastic developers and get to work).

The article made it seem (IMHO) that the different personalities were completely distinct. I'd have to disagree with that point, having majored in CS while at college, but I feel like I'm slightly more "blue collar" than "white collar". I think you can definitely have bits of both personalities. Just my 2 cents.

Re: Are You a Blue Collar or White Collar Developer?

#5

Post by rwhitman » Mon, Dec 21, 2009, 6:25 AM UTC

Well I'm glad to see the raging class / education war raging in the comments of that post isn't taking place on HN.

Re: Are You a Blue Collar or White Collar Developer?

#6

Post by thwarted » Mon, Dec 21, 2009, 7:10 AM UTC

With more than a hint of a defensive tone, he said that he didn’t go to college. ... "Really? So where did you learn to write code?"

The most interesting thing about this parable is that no one seemed to have been "writing code" before having gone to school to "learn" it.

I'm not a programmer because of my CS degree, I'm a programmer because I've been programming, learning to program, and continue to learn to program, for nearly 75% of my life, only half of that professionally.