Debt or Slop?

Fri, 11 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I once worked with a guy named Ev, who is quite possibly one of the most prolific yet worst programmers I’ve ever worked with. During a review of something he implemented, another guy on the team asked “Who is benefitting from all of this code? Are we trying to please the gods of programming by offering them a sacrifice of so many lines of code?”

Following up after him was demoralizing. His implementations were often done out of band and just sort of wedged into production. Most of his work had to be completely rewritten, and the replacement process took far longer than just doing it correctly the first time. Nearly everything else had to be decommissioned, often with apologies to the internal stakeholders and clients.

Taste: In Defense of the Rockstar Programmer

Sun, 06 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Back in the early 2000s, tech recruiters got their talons on a new phrase: the “rockstar developer”. They’d heard of this mythical creature: the one who ships features at a dizzying pace, who can solve impossible problems overnight, who know exactly what to do.

Like most industry terms, it got twisted, overused, and turned into corporate-speak for someone who we all hate. Painting with a broad brush, you can conjure up images of the lone wolf, a “cowboy coder” who writes messy, unmaintainable code, disregards the team, and leaves a trail of technical debt in their wake. Nowadays, the narrative is that these developers are brilliant but reckless, a short-term gain for a long-term, high-interest loan you’ll be paying off for years. Or more often, people believe that it’s just hype and that the rockstar doesn’t exist, or is a liar.

2025/07 on Serenity | The intervention consultancy for struggling software teams

Debt or Slop?

Taste: In Defense of the Rockstar Programmer