[altrego99]

> The other group, the reckless, consists of those who have the skills but don't have the discipline. They are the cowboy programmers of yore. They code according to their own desires, do nothing to integrate their work with that of others, scrimp on basic discipline, and cause work for other team members.

It is worthwhile to note that Steve, Linus, Feynmann (last one in physics, not coding) all belong to this category. These are the people who do programming (or whatever else they like) for their own pleasure - to derive fun out of. They are unafraid to challenge the status quo - and they are exactly the ones who cause disruptive changes in the world.

If at all, the slowness with which their reputation is dying makes me happy - because though they are capable of having highest success rate in creating start ups, unfortunately not all of them will succeed in building their own company. And it will be a sad world if these people are not allowed in established companies to make the changes that can swing the world in the organization's favor.

[gfosco]

I've never understood the hate for cowboy coders. A great cowboy coder can do the work of an entire team. It's so typical for people to cry that the cowboy causes work for others, but I've never seen it myself, and I expect the great many who claim it are just following the group-think they've had drilled into their heads.

If you inherit a program from some other maintainer, there is a learning curve no matter what. A good programmer quickly learns how it's put together and plays the field they're on.

[grlthgn]

The problem is when your cowboy coder leaves your company, you are fucked. The code is undocumented, and incomprehensible. It works but you have no idea how it works and neither does anybody else.

[gfosco]

I think that may just be a straw-man argument. It should not be difficult to figure out how it works, the logic is laid out right in front of you.

There is always a learning curve when taking over a project.

[myko]

Steve who?

[5teev]

Wozniak? (Although "Woz" is more usual.)

[Daniel_Newby]

You are using "cowboy coder" dramatically different than thr Dr. Dobbs article. He's talking about the kind of person who leaves bits of their shopping list in a comment in the source code.