It's been quite a while since I visited here, but I wanted to share a story about one of my predecessors at work. I've never known him personally, and this story does not have a happy ending – which is often the case on TheDailyWTF, but this time, not in the way you'd probably think.
So the title of this is "stubbornness". You probably know the type. who believe that their way is not only the best; nay, it's the only way. Like I said, I've never known him, but his code tells me a lot about him.
He did everything himself. Security system? Check. Logging framework? Ditto. Have a standard component in Java Swing? He'd subclass it.
The application that he wrote and that I'm maintaining is impressive from a functional point of view, but the way it's been developed... oh boy. Composition over inheritance? Uh-uh. Avoidance of static variables? Nope. Using Spring framework? That would mean using an industry standard, so nope, sorry.
I'll fix it, but it'll take time.
The story doesn't end there, though. His stubbornness went further than just programming. One day, he had a motorcycle accident. He survived, and in fact went back to work. But his colleagues saw him fading away.
Now, we have universal free healthcare where we live. But there are budget constraints, waiting lists, etc. So they told him, look, you have a private health insurance. Why don't you go and see a private doctor? No, he said, if the system fails, I want to show that it fails. So he went to see a specialist every three months, they didn't find anything, and sent him on his way.
Eventually, six months after the accident, he went to see a private doctor. This doctor told him that he knew exactly what was wrong, and wanted him to visit hospital in a week's time.
He never made it to that appointment. He died.
And when I look at his code, I can completely understand it. This must have been a person who was either incapable or unwilling to look further than his own set of beliefs.
I don't really want to put a conclusion or a moral to this; all in all, it's just sad. And all the more sad, because it was avoidable.
The only thing I can say is: you're not the best programmer in the world. If you want to become better, use what is shared, and share by yourself.