[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.