I’ve been asked after my presentation on Webcamp Zagreb do I think designers or programmers have bigger egos. As my answer was picked up on Twitter more than a few times, I decided to put it here.
I believe that programmers have bigger egos. It’s not because designers don’t have the capacity to think of themselves as superheroes :), it’s just that their work is viewed, and therefore criticized, by more people. The fact that a visual work is much easier to comprehend in much less time only increases the likelihood of a feedback.
Code is often hard to read by other programmers, especially if using different technologies. It’s totally impossible to read and evaluate it by non-programmers. Only few people, if any, ever see what someone wrote, so it’s very easy to fool yourself in thinking how good you are.
Times are changing, though. GitHub, Bitbucket and similar services have opened the code for others to see and comment. Companies that practice code reviews also help programmers gain a different perspective of their skills. But even then, every developer still thinks they’re the best, right? ;)