Overview

Teaching: 3 min
Exercises: 0 min

Questions

• What are some challenges of working collaboratively?

Objectives

• Understand challenges of working collaboratively

Logistics

• Location
• Time zone

Decision-making

• Standard practices
• Designs

Communication and coordination

• Who works on what
• Status

Egos (personal factors)

• The benefits of collaborative construction are greatly affected by the egos, or humility, of the participants
• The Egoless Programmer

  “…most of programming is an attempt to compensate for the strictly limited size of our skulls. The people who are best at programming are the people who realize how small their brains are. They are humble. The people who are worst at programming are the people who refuse to accept the fact that their brains aren’t equal to the task. Their egos keep them from being great programmers. The more you learn to compensate for your small brain\, the better a programmer you’ll be. The more humble you are, the faster you’ll improve.” (Code Complete 2ed. pg. 821, summarizing a 1972 Turing Award lecture by Edsger Dijkstra)

Strive to become an egoless programmer

Key Points

• Logistics, decision-making and communication all can negatively impact your ability to work effectively

• Egos can be a significant problem. Strive to be an egoless programmer.