Simon Willison’s Weblog

Why do developers so dislike “ideas people”?

29th November 2012

My answer to Why do developers so dislike “ideas people”? on Quora

There’s no disdain for creativity or the business side—those things are essential! The disdain is for people who think that having the idea is enough for them to be useful for the company (“I’ve got a great idea, I just need a developer to build it for me”). If you can’t build you’d better be able to do a LOT of other useful things. Having an idea isn’t enough.

Update: I’ve been thinking about this a bit harder, and I think what it really comes down to is respect. As an engineer, there’s nothing more frustrating than being thought of as just a “resource” to implement other people’s ideas. We don’t dislike ideas people—we dislike ideas people who treat us as people whose only purpose is to build someone else’s idea.