Ask Slashdot: What Makes a Great Software Developer?

Posted by Soulskill on Tuesday January 27, 2015 @01:00PM from the highlander-style-combat dept.

Nerval's Lobster writes: What does it take to become a great — or even just a good — software developer? According to developer Michael O. Church's posting on Quora (later posted on LifeHacker), it's a long list: great developers are unafraid to learn on the job, manage their careers aggressively, know the politics of software development (which he refers to as 'CS666'), avoid long days when feasible, and can tell fads from technologies that actually endure... and those are just a few of his points. Over at Salsita Software's corporate blog, meanwhile, CEO and founder Matthew Gertner boils it all down to a single point: experienced programmers and developers know when to slow down. What do you think separates the great developers from the not-so-fantastic ones?

1 of 214 comments (clear)

Min score:

Reason:

Sort:

Re:Alternate Link by barrywalker · 2015-01-27 13:30 · Score: 5, Interesting

I've become the "goto" guy for a lot of stuff simply by being curious. I've had a significant hand in every single piece of our application and know it better than anybody else on the team. I volunteer for things that scare the shit out of most of our developers. All it takes is, "Huh. This is broken. I wonder how it works?" to become Mr. Indispensable.