The myth of the Genius Programmer

It has been almost a month after my last post. Actually, I was so busy and drunk with the Lunar New Year but also had a good time with my family and friends as well.

Today I watched this video and found that’s so true. Listening to this talk made me feel much better about my work. We, programmers are also human and we will make mistakes, the best thing we can do is try not to repeat them. Doing pair programing and code review helped us a lot to spot and prevent the problem before we ended up it on production. The collaboration is the key to success.

Summarizing:

• There is no genius
• Lose the ego
• Criticism is not evil
• Embrace failure
• Iterate Quickly
• Be a small fish
• Be influenced
• Be vulnerable
• Tools
• Involve collaborators early, but not too (at the ‘sweet spot’)

In other words:

• Don’t try to be a genius
• Collaborate early and often
• Pay attention to your tools
• Pay attention to timing

Hope you enjoy the video.