Reading the descriptions, I was reminded of three or four guys I had worked with one time or another, so he may have a point there...
Eric S. Raymond says you probably fit one of eight tech archetypes
Open source luminary Eric S. Raymond has given the world eight “Hacker Archetypes” that he thinks offer useful ways to categorise your colleagues and by doing so help them to understand their strengths and weaknesses. Raymond says he thinks that's a worthwhile exercise because a friend of his says categorising people helps her …
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Monday 10th April 2017 03:53 GMT allthecoolshortnamesweretaken
PS: archetypes can be useful, as long as you don't overdo it, if you know what I mean. Few people are that onedimensional, they usually are a combination of types. (Yes, both the article and the source already mention this.) But concentrating on the dominant traits in a limited frame (like work roles) can work.
Personally, as far as archetypes go, I have found the six archetypes handy that Cynthia Heimel postulates in her book "Sex Tips for Girls" (which is a title that is a bit misleading, but probably didn't hurt the book's sales figures).
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Monday 10th April 2017 04:00 GMT Geoffrey W
I do recognise aspects of myself in those descriptions; a JOAT edging towards Algorithmicist. I was called a bit twister at one interview, then rejected, even after he said I gave the best definition of an expert system he had heard. I was very upset. Hey! What are you doing in my corner? Are you messing with my computer????? What are you doing? WTF? Get out! OUT! NOW! OUT!!!!! sulk...pout...weep...my...precioussssssessss...
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Monday 10th April 2017 05:41 GMT Steve Davies 3
JOAT ++
JOAT plus Architect plus Tinkerer
How else but from a bit of tinkering/sandboxing/POC can the Architect know what will work and more importantly what won't?
I find that very few Architects (in the IT World) these days dare to get their hands dirty and try stuff out.
Architect often transform into PHB's and we know what happens then.
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Monday 10th April 2017 09:51 GMT Hans Neeson-Bumpsadese
Re: Steve Davies 3
I find that very few Architects (in the IT World) these days dare to get their hands dirty and try stuff out.
In my experience, the best architects are the ones who don't dwell in the detail. A side-effect of that is to become further removed from the tools - eventually you end up designing an architecture for a system that will be developed in a language that you have no hands-on experience of. It's not so much an unwillingness to get hands dirty, but a simple lack of ability in a certain tech.
I've successfully designed a number of systems implemented in Java/JBoss, but have never written a line of Java in my life. Fortunately, I understand the capabilities of the target tech, so can apply/adapt as I'm designing an architecture.
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Monday 10th April 2017 13:56 GMT Robert Carnegie
Re: Myers Briggs?
in my interpretation, you're Sorted to a House, not for what your nature is, but for what latent attributes you have that can be encouraged. And Hufflepuff is if there's basically nothing wrong with you.
Gryffindor, on the other hand - Hermione, Neville, and even Ron were Sorted into Gryffindor, not because they were little heroic rule-breakers, but because they weren't and they needed to be. And Harry Potter was offered a choice (Slytherin, to develop social skills). So was Hermione (Ravenclaw).
Those Houses encourage an eccentric type of behaviour, either because you aren't good at it and you need to be, or because it's the only thing that you are good at.
And look at Cedric Diggory - Hufflepuff. Capable, cheerful, well balanced, heroic. He wasn't in Gryffindor because he already had enough of Gryffindor in him.
"Castellan" seems to be from Game of Thrones; I was thinking of "Doctor Who". Of course, reading the manual is important but you shouldn't believe what you read. "Trust but verify."
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Monday 10th April 2017 05:43 GMT graeme leggett
categorization usefulness
If it helps you, the manager, to understand how your people think and work, and you use it to help the team get the job done without creating division or hostility, then putting handles on workers is probably OK.
If you fail to use it, or misapply it, or use it to control rather than enable, then it's a waste of effort.
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Monday 10th April 2017 07:20 GMT Anonymous Coward
So tech workers are only ever one of these categories?
* Or is it that they're only ever one of these at any one point in a career?
* Tech-heads morph into different roles / styles over time. Some of that is out of necessity. Ability to sponge up new information vs. analytical experience....
* For example: Sharpshooters may morph into Architects as its becomes more difficult to keep a detailed 'micro focus' on every new piece of tech etc.
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Monday 10th April 2017 07:20 GMT jake
Attempting to pigeonhole people has a major issue.
The issue is that an adherent of any of the dozens of pigeonholing systems can rarely see outside the framework of that system.
Combine that with the fact that people are quite a bit more complex than any of these systems allow for leads to huge errors in judgement on the part of the pigeonholer.
Me, I find it a hell of a lot easier to treat people as individuals, instead of futilely trying to fit them into nice, tidy little boxes.
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Monday 10th April 2017 08:14 GMT Long John Brass
Re: Attempting to pigeonhole people has a major issue.
Me, I find it a hell of a lot easier to treat people as individuals, instead of futilely trying to fit them into nice, tidy little boxes.
Have you tried a chainsaw or wood chipper? Make it easier to get em in those pesky boxes.
Now to figure out how to stop the boxes leaking
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Monday 10th April 2017 10:51 GMT John 110
Re: Attempting to pigeonhole people has a major issue.
@Long John Brass
"You MONSTER!!!
Plastic is NOT biodegradable"
Future generations, combing refuse heaps for resources, will be glad of a bit of plastic (especially a tupperware* box filled with organic goodness...)
*Other kind of boxes could prove useful - really useful
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Monday 10th April 2017 16:13 GMT Roland6
Re: Attempting to pigeonhole people has a major issue.
>Plastic is NOT biodegradable
Who said anything about disposing of the plastic container. Wheelie bins are really useful: minimum 'tailoring' required to get the body to fit and the lid to close. Plus, as long as you put it out on the correct day, some nice men with a lorry come along and empty it, a quick wash with a pressure hose and it's ready for the next occupant...
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Tuesday 11th April 2017 09:07 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Attempting to pigeonhole people has a major issue.
Sorry you have all missed the obvious !!! :)
Chill down the box in a liquid Nitrogen bath first.
No leakage until the box thaws ........ simples.
Easy to handle with a good pair of gloves.
or
use liquid Oxygen and then ignite box from a safe distance.
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Monday 10th April 2017 09:48 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Attempting to pigeonhole people has a major issue.
People, and I guess the universe as a whole is complicated. People through history hate it, because it makes things really hard to understand. Hence the prevalence of religion : why try and answer loads of really hard questions, when you can invent a sky ghost (or a collection of them) to answer all the questions for you. Pigeonholes are the same thing. Black or white way simpler than greyscale. 8 or even 5 categories are too many. You are either a Zoe or a Zelda.
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Monday 10th April 2017 08:25 GMT Nick Kew
Clickbait
A rule of internet links: anything involving a number "of" is calculated clickbait.
"Ten ways to ..."
"Five things ..."
"Six great ..."
This story wraps it in "ESR says ...", but still seems to fall into that category.
As regards the archetypes, it's human nature to identify with such descriptions. If you are a Reg reader (and therefore at least somewhat techie), you should probably expect to identify pretty strongly with at least one archetype.
I don't. I can identify only slightly with any of them. I can identify more strongly with INTJ, or with several of Scott Adams's characters headed by Dilbert himself. Or indeed with numerous "ordinary person" characters in general (non-techie) culture.
I have to conclude, this clickbait lacks substance.
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Monday 10th April 2017 09:29 GMT Wupspups
Two more for the list
You can also add "smarmy assed know it all". Knows everything, master of everything,has done everything, doesnt need to be told anything, refuses to believe that anyway but his way is possible.
Then there is the "rolling road block" . Nothing will work. He tried to do that but couldnt get it to work, so you have no chance of getting it to work. Even if you do get it to work it will be a pile of crap.
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Monday 10th April 2017 10:06 GMT Hans Neeson-Bumpsadese
Re: Two more for the list
Another one, which I have encountered at least once - The Delusional Aspirationalist...endowed with a belief that they have skills that they most certainly don't have, and see themselves in a natural position at the head of a team of people where they can bask in reflected glory.
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Monday 10th April 2017 11:14 GMT Anonymous Coward
Developer: starts out with an IDE and a blinking cursor in a blank project (software) or a soldering iron and a bucket of ICs and thingamajigs (hardware) to create software/hardware item out of nothing. Working towards a goal he knows every step along the way but misses sideroads.
Architect/Engineer: Crudely understands inner workings of available bits of software and hardware but excels at cobbling them together into a working production system, often using unexplored sideroads of said items or combinations never originally envisioned or anticipated by Developer types.
Hacker/Breaker: Could not develop anything big or engineer anything complex if his life depended on it, but can hyperfocus on specific parts of hardware/software items. Taking the sideroads neglected by Developer he is usually capable of understanding software / hardware item or whole system good enough to break it.
That was the classification I have always used until now. Or at least have used to illustrate why specifically software / firmware is as bad as it is. Developers have tunnelvision on final product, neglecting possible attack vectors, Hackers have tunnelvision in regards to finding those. Folks who have both capabilities developed to a high level are far and in between. If we could crossbreed and deploy them for this IoT slow-motion desaster I'd sleep better at night,
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Monday 10th April 2017 13:07 GMT Kubla Cant
Architect
Unfortunately, the term "architect" has taken over the unlovely role previously occupied by "analyst". Time was, you could just be a programmer. Then that job title became a bit infra dig, and anyone whose job didn't involve floor-sweeping became an "analyst programmer".
Last year I worked in an office where everyone was either an architect or a business analyst (except me - as a contractor I was allowed to be just a developer). I think it's a way of providing a chimerical career path for the permies.
Nothing against real architects.
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Monday 10th April 2017 21:21 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Architect - became an "analyst programmer"
I once applied for a job with this description. It turned out the company had basically one person - who had awarded himself this description.
The entire suite of software meriting this job description was a small Access database.
Type 9: Dunning-Krueger Exemplar.
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Monday 10th April 2017 15:57 GMT caitlin.bestler
Architects *are* Translators
The description makes architects sound like isolated theorists.
in my experience the most crucial role of an ARchitect is to be able to discuss the same project with
Product Management, Software Engineers, Electrical Engineers, Project Management and Patent Lawyers.
Successful projects need all fronts firing in somewhat aligned directions, and all to frequently the archtect is the only one communicating with all groups.
There is far more work in *communicating* a broad design than there is in creating the design.
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Monday 10th April 2017 17:33 GMT Stevie
Bah!
Where's the shouty, abusive one that has to be kept away from the users even at e-mail's length?
Or the one that hasn't figured out how to bathe?
Or the one who cannot fathom the hinge on the toilet seat?
Or the one that thinks people are fooled by his putting the coffee-pot back on the hotplate on a slant to "hide" the fact that he is dodging the "you take the last cup, you make a new pot" rule?
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Monday 10th April 2017 17:53 GMT Anonymous Coward
Great... Sending links of the source article to all our competitors
...in the hope they are dumb enough to believe it.
I have found that pigeon holing people into narrow and arbitrary stereotypes is useful for two things, annoying them into working somewhere else and identifying the 20% of the population that compulsively fills out online surveys.
Or you could try to 1) build teams with complementary skills, and 2) weigh individuals with Antisocial tendencies that require special handling against their productivity and deploy containment strategies.
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Monday 10th April 2017 21:26 GMT Anonymous Coward
---> Disaster magnet
I've never understood how it's possible but it certainly exists. Is it possible there's a particle involved which creates a scalar field that interacts with anything functional, and some people carry the particle? A kind of Murphy's Boson?
We had one at school. Expensive lab glassware could spontaneously shatter if he so much as opened the door. Brunswiga machines (yes I am that old) would jam. Cursors would fall off of slide rules.
I haven't checked but I suspect that he must be coming up to retirement as a senior programme manager at one of our better known outsourcers.
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Monday 10th April 2017 22:22 GMT Sam Therapy
Prankster
That's the nearest I can find to me, given the list shown.
I have good social skills, was frequently in a manager/TL post and often caused utter mayhem (deliberately) at many places I worked.
I love making people laugh. Not all people, not all the time, and not necessarily at the same time, either.