Thanks to Emily’s creative recruiting tactics, Computerworld contributing writer, Mary Brandel, contacted us about an article she was writing (Rock Star Coders) in which she wanted to “take a look at the growing subculture of developers who’ve gained (or think they’ve gained) something along the lines of ’star status’ in the world of programming.”  We were happy to talk with her (trade emails, mostly), and she got particularly good insights from Clinton, a Senior Developer at Viget.  She left off my favorite thing that he said, though:

“When I saw an ad for Viget, the phrasing appealed to me: it showed that they cared that their developers were *people* as much as code-writing machines. They realized that speaking at a conference - I spoke as O’Reilly’s OSCON last year - is a good quality: it shows you seek to expose your thoughts. Maybe that’s the core of being a rockstar programmer: you aren’t afraid to show your code and your ideas to the world, and that lack of self-consciousness propels you to greatness.”

Of course, he wasn’t responding to our rock star post.  That came a bit later. 

I like the article and appreciate Mary’s work on it.  Since we came off as the pro-rock star term slant, I’d hope that anyone who reads the article takes the time to read the job post.  I would think you’d “get” that we are in fact pretty light-hearted about the term. 

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