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Comment by pm | Hacker News Reader

I think I've been almost all of these at some point in my career.

Author here: as I state in the article, every programmer is at least one of these at some point in their career, myself included.

I was definitely an Island as recently as a few years ago, and I've been an Artist before too. It's part of the learning process.

To clarify, I've been many of these simultaneously, and I'm not sure that it's changed much; different circumstances bring out different aspects.

Apparently, I'm a melting pot of neuroses.

> Apparently, I'm a melting pot of neuroses.

It's great to be a human, isn't it?

Don't forget impostor syndrome! It sounds as if you're hard on yourself, possibly for that reason.

Nah, I got a handle on that a while ago. I know my skills and I know myself, it's just sobering to see so many of my motivations and behaviours described accurately. If I was convinced these programmer aspects were entirely negative, I would've succumbed to the debilitating effects of impostor syndrome years ago.

IMO, the island archetype is probably the most productive. At least in my experience, IM/Outlook/Thunderbird really kills what I can get done. And the corporate emails...

Nice post. I have traits of an Island and a Pet (Python) Technologist but you omitted listing my top archetype: The OCD Refactorist. I can't stand copypasta code, I have to make it DRY asap (plus many more refactorings, typically resulting in shorter, minimalistic code).

Not me - I am the one enlightened programmer (so we all think :-)

Enlightened programmer is the first stage, then you move onto all the others, then you realise you are all of these at the same time.

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