{"id":80,"date":"2008-04-08T07:44:09","date_gmt":"2008-04-08T12:44:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wiredprairie.us\/blog\/index.php\/archives\/80"},"modified":"2008-04-08T20:39:16","modified_gmt":"2008-04-09T01:39:16","slug":"what-does-it-take-to-make-a-rock-star-software-developer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wiredprairie.us\/blog\/index.php\/archives\/80","title":{"rendered":"What does it take to make a rock star software developer?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>From ReadWriteWeb, &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~r\/readwriteweb\/~3\/266192827\/top_10_software_engineer_traits.php\" target=\"_blank\">Top 10 Traits of a Rockstar Software Engineer<\/a>.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>See the full post for the details of each point.<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Loves To Code<\/li>\n<li>Gets Things Done<\/li>\n<li>Continuously Refactors Code<\/li>\n<li>Uses Design Patterns<\/li>\n<li>Writes Tests<\/li>\n<li>Leverages Existing Code<\/li>\n<li>Focuses on Usability<\/li>\n<li>Writes Maintainable Code<\/li>\n<li>Can Code in Any Language<\/li>\n<li>Knows Basic Computer Science<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>What do you think about this list &#8212; does this list represent a rock star software engineer? I personally think the list is too slanted on &#8220;Agile&#8221; practices. What works for a web application software provider may not work well for an ISV or an enterprise developer in all cases.<\/p>\n<p>I would have expected some mention of one of the classic books of software development to be mentioned, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/0735619670?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=wiredp-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=0735619670\">Code Complete: A Practical Handbook of Software Construction<\/a><img loading=\"lazy\" style=\"margin: 0px; border-top-style: none! important; border-right-style: none! important; border-left-style: none! important; border-bottom-style: none! important\" src=\"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=wiredp-20&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=0735619670\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" \/> by Steve McConnell.<\/p>\n<p>Maybe the biggest issue I have with the list is that even if I checked all of these off while interviewing someone, I don&#8217;t know that I&#8217;d hire them. There are a few things I&#8217;d add for a developer to be a rock star. The following are a few ideas.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Certainly, I look for &#8220;passion&#8221; or &#8220;energy&#8221; when interviewing. You can love to code &#8211; but will you love coding what I need you to code? Will you believe in the project or application? Will it excite you?<\/li>\n<li>Do you work well on a team? Individuality is important, but being a great peer is an important trait to have. Maybe the best way I could think about this is: even rock stars need a band (or at least a supporting crew). Having a good team behind the &#8220;rockstar&#8221; is just as important as having the rockstar &#8230; actually, maybe more important! So, don&#8217;t leave the band out of the rock star.<\/li>\n<li>Do you understand the platform you&#8217;ll be working on? How well can you learn it? It&#8217;s not about a programming language or knowing basic computer science &#8230; if you don&#8217;t know how the system works (ticks), are you going to be as effective as the engineer who does (I doubt it).<\/li>\n<li>Can you communicate well &#8212; in whatever form is necessary? It&#8217;s not about the language so much as your ability to communicate ideas, problems, solutions, etc. well to others. I&#8217;m not suggesting you need to do a presentation to a Board of Directors or 500 people at the next conference &#8230; just to your coworkers, one on one, etc.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>What would you add?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From ReadWriteWeb, &#8220;Top 10 Traits of a Rockstar Software Engineer.&#8221; See the full post for the details of each point. Loves To Code Gets Things Done Continuously Refactors Code Uses Design Patterns Writes Tests Leverages Existing Code Focuses on Usability Writes Maintainable Code Can Code in Any Language Knows Basic Computer Science What do you [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pd5QIe-1i","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":426,"url":"https:\/\/www.wiredprairie.us\/blog\/index.php\/archives\/426","url_meta":{"origin":80,"position":0},"title":"Visual WebGUI &#8212; Uh? Neat technology for someone else.","date":"July 16, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"At the top of the page linked above, you can try the Ajax version or the Silverlight version of their web-mail demo. Try it. I won't say that I'm not impressed by what they've accomplished technically. It's impressive. They use a WinForms designer to build parts of the user interface\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Coding&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"image","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.wiredprairie.us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/07\/image-thumb2.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":175,"url":"https:\/\/www.wiredprairie.us\/blog\/index.php\/archives\/175","url_meta":{"origin":80,"position":1},"title":"What&#8217;s the perfect API?","date":"May 5, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I was skimming a rant by someone on arstechnica about how badly messed up Win32 APIs are and how superior everything else is, when this paragraph grabbed my attention: The reason must be that no one in Microsoft actually gives a damn. Each group develops their own UI widgets in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Coding&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1382,"url":"https:\/\/www.wiredprairie.us\/blog\/index.php\/archives\/1382","url_meta":{"origin":80,"position":2},"title":"Nest Thermostat Review, Update #4","date":"January 2, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Update #6, Update #5, Update #4, Update #3, Update #2, Update #1, Install A bit more about my Nest thermostat experiences. On the weekend, I spoke with a support engineer from Nest regarding the issue I was having with one of the Nest units failing to properly read the room\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.wiredprairie.us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/image_thumb.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":547,"url":"https:\/\/www.wiredprairie.us\/blog\/index.php\/archives\/547","url_meta":{"origin":80,"position":3},"title":"Oslo &#8212; what?","date":"September 10, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"According to Don Box, the best explanation of Oslo is here at eWeek. I read it. Oslo is aimed at empowering nondevelopers to build distributed applications. The initial version of Oslo won\u2019t let a complete novice build applications, but it will ease development. It will also, hopes Microsoft, broaden the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Coding&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2224,"url":"https:\/\/www.wiredprairie.us\/blog\/index.php\/archives\/2224","url_meta":{"origin":80,"position":4},"title":"Flutter Demo application linking to BoardGameGeek.Com&#8217;s Hot Game List","date":"February 26, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"I've built a slightly more interesting application using Flutter.\u00a0 Using an XML feed from BoardGameGeek's API, the application displays a list of the current hot games complete with thumbnail images. Here's the code. I used a standard Flutter app template and also added a few packages to the project. I've\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Coding&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"Hulk Smash Layout","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.wiredprairie.us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/2018-02-26-19_45_39-Hulk-Smash-Meme-Generator-Imgflip.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":871,"url":"https:\/\/www.wiredprairie.us\/blog\/index.php\/archives\/871","url_meta":{"origin":80,"position":5},"title":"Time for JavaScript.NEXT","date":"December 2, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"OK, I\u2019ll admit that HTML 5, when it becomes a true standard and the common browsers implement it and all of CSS 3 that we won\u2019t need as many browser plug-ins for doing rich interactive applications anymore. We could ditch Microsoft\u2019s Silverlight and Adobe\u2019s Flash and not look back. But,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Coding&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wiredprairie.us\/blog\/index.php\/wpjson\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wiredprairie.us\/blog\/index.php\/wpjson\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wiredprairie.us\/blog\/index.php\/wpjson\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wiredprairie.us\/blog\/index.php\/wpjson\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wiredprairie.us\/blog\/index.php\/wpjson\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.wiredprairie.us\/blog\/index.php\/wpjson\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wiredprairie.us\/blog\/index.php\/wpjson\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wiredprairie.us\/blog\/index.php\/wpjson\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wiredprairie.us\/blog\/index.php\/wpjson\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}