Does the 'Hacker Ethic' Harm Today's Developers?

snydeq writes "Fatal Exception's Neil McAllister questions whether the 'hacker ethic' synonymous with computer programing in American society is enough for developers to succeed in today's economy. To be sure, self-taught 'cowboy coders' — the hallmark of today's programming generation in America — are technically proficient, McAllister writes, 'but their code is less likely to be maintainable in the long term, and they're less likely to conform to organizational development processes and coding standards.' And though HTC's Vineet Nayar's proclamation that American programmers are 'unemployable' is overblown, there may be wisdom in offering a new kind of computer engineering degree targeted toward the student who is more interested in succeeding in industry than exploring computing theory. 'American software development managers often complain that Indian programmers are too literal-minded,' McAllister writes, but perhaps Americans have swung the pendulum too far in the other direction. In other words, are we 'too in love with the hacker ideal of the 1980s to produce programmers who are truly prepared for today's real-life business environment?'"

Comments

Unemployable?

[outsider007]

I thought our messy unmaintainable code made us unfireable.

Re:Unemployable?

[hedwards]

No, the program to fix the mess of poorly formated jumbled code, is what makes us unfireable.

Re:Hackers vs Designers - Hackers Loose every time

[Anonymous Coward]

Designers can't spell.

Re:Hackers vs Designers - Hackers Loose every time

[FreonTrip]

Flame on, you crazy bastard.

But it's green

[travdaddy]

In other words, are we 'too in love with the hacker ideal of the 1980s to produce programmers who are truly prepared for today's real-life business environment?

I don't know, but us IT guys save A TON of money riding a skateboard everywhere, and it's environmentally friendly! Who's laughing now?

-The Plague

Re:You are not a cowboy.

[Sponge Bath]

Cowboys don't document.

Mama, don't let your babies groy up to be cowboys.

Re:Says who?

[Chuck Chunder]

Hi, I'm a self-taught cowboy programmer.

Not any more, now you're an anecdote.

Re:Stop posting McAllister. He's the new Dvorak.

[Nefarious Wheel]

We have a couple "cowboys", myself included. We blaze proof of concept code in whatever the heck

Blazing SDL's?

Re:Stop posting McAllister. He's the new Dvorak.

[networkBoy]

I'm going to work that into my API docs...
Not sure how, but I am.
-nB