Great Hackers vs No Great Hackers

Via this submission to Joel's upcoming Best Software Essays of 2004 book, I learned of 2 really good essays contrasting whether you want to hire a great hacker or a professional software developer.

Essay on hiring Great Hackers - http://www.paulgraham.com/gh.html

Essay on hiring professional software developers - http://software.ericsink.com/entries/No_Great_Hackers.html

Graham's essay covers more ground, and rambles, but is excellent. Very interesting to see the defensive responses of people who seem to have a bent against people who code for fun more than code for a living. Perhaps they know they aren't great hackers :-)

That's not to say that Sink's essay doesn't say plenty of good stuff - indeed creating teams that work together to meet your customer's needs is vital to the success of any software business (see Peopleware on that point) especially for small ISVs.

But in practice, every software company needs both Hackers and "professionals". You need people who'll do the boring stuff so that the product gets out the door, and you need the trailblazers who will do the amazing stuff to get you the market in the first place. I think I said something like that before, but in regard to open-source vs proprietary development models. Bringing hackers and "professionals" together and forming a close-knit team is what a good Software Team Lead does. And they're as rare as hen's teeth.

Footnote: The exception that proves the rule is Google. I keep reading about this incredible team they have of highly innovative people. The only Google-ite I know is Marc, and he fits that mold.

tech/code | 29 Oct 2004 | #