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Title: Nobody Does It Better
Author: Bob Schmidt
Date: 06 March 2019 17:41:26 +00:00 or Wed, 06 March 2019 17:41:26 +00:00
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Body:
At some point over the course of our lives as software developers, we all – I suspect – succumb to the idea that we, as individuals, are the crucial component of the team on a project, and that the (continued) success of that project is entirely dependent on us.
It’s a tempting idea, because to be indispensable might mean job security, or merely kudos among our peers, but it’s an attractive thought.
There is a popular image of programmers as lone-hackers surrounded by pizza, coffee and doughnuts, face green-lit by monitor glare. It might be misrepresentation by segments of the media, but I wonder how many of us secretly want it to be true.
The thing about being indispensable is, of course, that it’s a myth, at least for most of us. A good thing too, probably: if you’re going to take all the credit when things go well, you have to accept all the responsibility when they don’t! It’s much better to share both things amongst a whole team, because it is in this way that important lessons are not just learned, they’re passed on to the larger community much more effectively, too.
I’ve certainly had my own personal moments of believing (or at least, wishing) myself to be the Hero Programmer, but I’ve learned that being able on the one hand to depend on a team of people, and on the other to be able to share what I have learned might make me dispensable, but overall it makes me better at my job, and opens up all sorts of opportunities I would have missed were I that lone hacker, alone in a darkened room.
Despite being a fairly young industry, there’s already quite a lot of collective knowledge about how we go about our business. Being able to tap into that knowledge is crucial for us if we, collectively, are to continue to grow and learn about our craft. Sure, it’s moving all the time, and we are still learning as we go, but it’s my belief that we’re getting better at it. I am, anyway.
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