This week I read the reaction of Avdi to the rant of Linus last week. He proposes a short but insightful angle by just naming it ‘bullying’. It rejoins the damage that I consider the coder-hero culture brings to our industry.

Certainly the creative process of writing software attract creative people. They have strong personalities, some have tendencies to mild autism. They move mountains and their pride make them work day and night to achieve unbelievable things.

This is good and well, but on the long run, now that we are passing 2 generations of coders, we know that it’s not sustainable on the long run. Plus, it has a disastrous impact on team building. No pyramid was built by a single hero.

Incidentally I also read an interesting article about Why computer programmers need to stop calling themselves engineers already. Even if I can’t clearly explain how this is related, I have the feeling it’s talking about something that is in the same area.