Chapter 33. Personal Character

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Contents

• Isn't Personal Character Off the Topic? page 820

• Intelligence and Humility page 821

• Curiosity page 822

• Intellectual Honesty page 826

• Communication and Cooperation page 828

• Creativity and Discipline page 829

• Laziness page 830

• Characteristics That Don't Matter As Much As You Might Think page 830

• Habits page 833

Related Topics

• Themes in software craftsmanship: Chapter 34

• Complexity: Sections 5.2 and 19.6

Personal character has received a rare degree of attention in software development. Ever since Edsger Dijkstra's landmark 1965 article, "Programming Considered as a Human Activity," programmer character has been regarded as a legitimate and fruitful area of inquiry. Titles such as The Psychology of Bridge Construction and "Exploratory Experiments in Attorney Behavior" might seem absurd, but in the computer field The Psychology of Computer Programming, "Exploratory Experiments in Programmer Behavior," and similar titles are classics.

Engineers in every discipline learn the limits of the tools and materials they work with. If you're an electrical engineer, you know the conductivity of various metals and a hundred ways to use a voltmeter. If you're a structural engineer, you know the loadbearing properties of wood, concrete, and steel.

If you're a software engineer, your basic building material is human intellect and your primary tool is you. Rather than designing a structure to the last detail and then handing the blueprints to someone else for construction, you know that once you've designed a piece of software to the last detail, it's done. The whole job of programming is building air castles it's one of the most purely mental activities you can do.

Consequently, when software engineers study the essential properties of their tools and raw materials, they find that they're studying people: intellect, character, and other attributes that are less tangible than wood, concrete, and steel.

If you're looking for concrete programming tips, this chapter might seem too abstract to be useful. Once you've absorbed the specific advice in the rest of the book, however, this chapter spells out what you need to do to continue improving. Read the next section, and then decide whether you want to skip the chapter.