Comments on: The “Rockstar” Developer

By: China Tour

China Tour — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 12:32:57 +0000

Great post. I especially found it interesting. For this matter, once I discussed with one of my friends, not only about the content you talked about, but also to how to improve and develop, but no results. So I am deeply moved by what you said today.*

By: gaurav

gaurav — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 21:15:04 +0000

Nice thoughts. simply explained

By: Kevin

Kevin — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 17:48:55 +0000

Couldn’t agree more with much of what’s been said here, and reminded me a lot of Tom Peter’s chat about job titles in his book Brand You 50.

By: Ben Smith

Ben Smith — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 10:33:33 +0000

Perhaps if you don’t want “rockstars” we should stop calling jobs “gigs”.

By: Andrew Beacock

Andrew Beacock — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 08:52:07 +0000

“How do we foster these people?”

Do they not ‘create themselves’ – most of the ‘rock star coders’ that I’ve met just have an innate love for all things ‘technical’, their job is computing and their hobby is computing – I think ‘rock stars’ find their own place to grow…

By: Sam Phillips

Sam Phillips — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 08:43:13 +0000

I agree that self-motivation, dedication and taking a lead are important traits to foster, but there is definitely a balance to be struck with the ‘Rockstar’ attitude and the work-to-rule mindset.

But I think the analogy sometimes goes too far. Rockstars trash hotel rooms, miss gigs and rebel against authority – this means that they are often difficult to work with and difficult to manage.

The ‘Rockstar’ idea also doesn’t help one bit with the casual misogyny which I think we all believe is too prevalent in our industry.

I’ve recently become quite unhappy with the Rockstar image. But as I said, a balance!