What soft skills make a great programmer?

Question

I want to know what people think are the most important soft skills (e.g patience, tenacity, competitiveness) for programmers.

I’m not really interested in communication skills, but more the skills you use when you’re hunched over the keyboard.

Answer 1

Patience and critical thinking.

Answer 2

Laziness of course. Less is more.

I've seen and reviewed so much code that should have been much less code.

Answer 3

Ability to learn quickly and figure things out just as fast.

Answer 4

Curiosity. You just have to be driven to figure out how things work (or how to make them work) for the sheer pleasure of it.

Answer 5

The ability to ask the correct question in the correct place. Hint: this is not it.

Answer 6

Perfectionism and Curiosity, and thinking "outside the box" (overall picture). And planning.

Answer 7

The ability to pull back from a particularly difficult problem. Most insights to these types of problems occur when you are doing something totally unrelated to the task at hand. If you are getting nowhere after 2-3 hours and feel as if your spinning your wheels, it is absolutely critical for you to be able to leave it aside and go do somethong else

Answer 8

• Tenacity - for bug-fixing and over-coming technical blocks.
• Analytical skills - able to break
  down big problems in to component parts.
• Knowledge sharing - able to grow knowledge in a team and improve those around them
• Pride in work - shows some interest in refactoring and simplifying code.

Answer 9

Not being able to sleep until you figured out a solution to that day's problem.

Answer 10

The absolute intrinsic need to learn something new, every time and forever.

Never stop learning.

Answer 11

I believe conscientiousness is one of the greatest assets to a programmer. It doesn't matter how technically good a programmer you are, if you are sloppy, don't comment code, don't adhere to conventions and don't test your work. Caring about your work is important.

Answer 12

being subjective and argumentative.

Answer 13

Understanding code rather then rewriting it.

Answer 14

Clear, logical and objective thinking (even when those around you are losing thier heads), patience, being able to ask the right questions, a dash of empathy, and the ability to avoid procrastinating [too much!].

I'd also say a desire and willingness to learn. You'll be doing it a lot.

Answer 15

Patience and perseverance ("I WILL fix this bug")

Answer 16

Don't Repeat Yourself / Don't re-invent the wheel!

Answer 17

Motivation, curiosity, logic and laziness.

Answer 18

Being able to honestly assess how long something is going to take, and honestly assess how you're proceeding so far. This is a skill I fervently wish I had.

And deferring gratification: spending a few minutes searching the project or library for code that already does what you're trying to do rather than jumping in and having fun coding up a new version immediately.

Answer 19

The ability to take criticism from anyone (Seniors, juniors, interns), analyze it and be able to apply it when necessary.

Answer 20

The ability to communicate ideas clearly and concisely to other people.

Answer 21

Larry Wall said it best: Laziness, Impatience and Hubris

I know that they are mostly tongue-in-cheek (you wouldn't go into a job interview and say "I think that my best skill is laziness") but deep down, they do lead to self-motivation. You want someone who will figure out what needs to be done and just do it (and WANT to do it), because it will make their own jobs easier, and if it makes their own jobs easier, it will probably make everyone else's jobs easier too.

Answer 22

Problem solving - Given something that doesn't work, figure out why it doesn't work and what possible solutions exist and why any of them may be the best solution to the problem.

Answer 23

• learning skills : to not repeat same errors again and again
• high abstraction level : environment doesn't matter, only code matters
• modelisation skills : be capable to sketch/explain ideas to others

Answer 24

Answering questions on Stack Overflow can be considered a soft skill? Giving back to community and helping others.

Answer 25

An unwillingness to let an unsolvable problem stay that way.

That, and making a new pot of coffee when you take the last cup.

Answer 26

Patience, and the force of will to rewrite something from the start.

Answer 27

For everyone in any type of profession, to become great it only takes dedication to the subject. Being passionate and obsessive with laughable working hours. Specially for programming, no social exercise is required.

Answer 28

Mathematical aesthetic sensibility. A God's gift that makes wonders.

Answer 29

Ability to learn by yourself. This way I learned crystal reports, SQL and .Net. At my work they love that.

Answer 30

Being able to LISTEN. How many times have I seen a client talking to a programmer, the guy paying attention the first few minutes and then his eyes glaze over, already forming his own ideas in his head.

P.S. I admit I used to do this too, but thankfully the I learned (and am still learning off course) how to do this better now.

Answer 31

Be compelled to engage in the act of programming

1. Celebrate when you figure something out
2. Celebrate more when people use
   your software.
3. Celebrate even more when they pay you. *and figure out how to stop repeating yourself (I'm a work in progress).

Answer 32

Keep your eye on the ball.

This is more valuable than laziness, impatience, or hubris as I see it. Knowing what you need to accomplish, envisioning what 'done' needs to look like, and not allowing that idea to get buried in inaccessible depths of your brain through inevitable yak shaving.

This is especially poignant when working on code, as you set out to solve one problem and inevitably run into others along the way. Most people get lost somewhere along that road, tunnel vision into some tangential issue, and miss out on possible opportunities to solve the original problem.

I've found this single skill to have the most measurable impact (out of any other hunched-over-your-computer programming soft skills) in someone's ability to get things done efficiently.

Answer 33

How much time u need to go home from office???? Answer:probably in miniuts or hours... Programmar's answer:From which office to which home....that's ability u have As a programmar.

Answer 34

Being able to adapt to coding practices/standards in the workplace when you don't agree with them.

Be willing to learn new development methods and also being able communicate when you think your right :)

Answer 35

Having the courage to sometimes scrap an entire project and start again (and again if needed)

Answer 36

Passion. I would say the biggest difference between great programmers and mediocre programmers in my opinion is passion.

Answer 37

I'll take the following any day of the week:

• The creativity of a mad scientist
• The greed for knowledge of a Vulcan
• A Zen Master's lack of ego

:)

Answer 38

Have an orientation of thinking in terms of solving anything on computer (writing a program). When I was first learning programming on my pocket computer (CASIO PB 100) in 1985 my daughter was pressing me "Come on dad. Let's play cards." I took it as a problem and wrote a simple program for playing cards.

Answer 39

Patience, curiosity, creativity, and McGuyver-tude.

Answer 40

Respect to parent & appreciation - inheritance & encapsulation
Able to reuse current technologies(existing classes & packages) - re usability