[Baypiggies] Chompapps Position - from Issue 31

[Alex Martelli]

On Mon, Oct 26, 2009 at 8:16 PM, RYAN DELUCCHI <bender at onsrc.com> wrote:
> And while we are on the collective soap-box, I am just put another one out
> there:  Anyone who says they are looking for a "rockstar" programmer can
> just forget about ever hearing from me.  I realize that this may seem to be
> kinda cute, from the surface.  But, I'm frankly insulted by the notion that
> to in order to be highly skilled software engineer: one has to be "cool"
> enough (hence, said engineer would be deemed a "rockstar").
>
> Just as I lament the fact that the media has reduced title of "hacker" to
> that of a criminal.  It angers me to see the (what I believe to be a rather
> beautiful) craft of software engineering be reduced to that of some lame pop
> icon.
>
> Anybody with me on this one?

Depends on one's definition of "rock".  I've heard Leonard Cohen's
music described as such (which I consider totally crazy [1]), but if
somebody was to say I'm the Leonard Cohen of programming [2] I'd
hardly find it in me to take offense;-).   I think "rock" has become
meaningless enough through dilution that "star" and "rock star" carry
about the same (modest) amount of information!-)

Alex

[1] well, the whole of U2 was terribly honored to be allowed to
perform at Cohen's side (playing and doing backup vocals) in a
testimonial, as they consider him their greatest source of inspiration
and a living legend, and I guess most people _would_ accept that Bono
is "a rock star", so I guess the case is not as cut-and-dried as all
that;-).

[2] or that my performance in technical presentations reminds them of
Grace Slick, to give an example some might consider more
rock-germane;-)