Chasing Coffee

Programmers and Artists

A while ago I was talking with someone who had observed that artists were much more willing to throw away unpolished work than programmers (e.g. feature X gets yanked because it detracts from gameplay more than it adds). I've developed a couple of theories on this difference:

1. An artist can frequently take screenshots & concept work from a project and use it to pad their resume even if the work wasn't included in the final project, a programmer can mostly wave their hands and say "It would've been so cool if we'd only had 2 more weeks to finish that feature" (note: this can actually work to your advantage very early in your career). If that feature was your most visible contribution to the project it can be particularly hard to let go of it.

2. Different programmers have different priorities. Some programmers are very good at prototyping features and creating the underlying technology. Other programmers are very good at polishing features and getting them ready for the end users. To a programmer who's good at prototyping, having the feature work robustly and quickly might mean that the feature is done. The manager doesn't see the robustness, the manager sees the lack of a slick UI or possible a few random bugs that can be fixed. Communication typically breaks down at this point and the feature gets axed. Note: this is often a failure on both ends. Don't go blaming your manager when you never tried to explain why your feature should be kept.

3. Programmers are highly competitive ornery bastards. We fight over everything. Go look at usenet. The lot of us should probably be in therapy.