Cowboy coding

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Cowboy Coding is a term used to describe software development where the developers have autonomy over the development process. This includes control of the project's schedule, algorithms, tools, and coding style.

A Cowboy Coder can be a lone developer or part of a group of developers with either no external management or management that controls only non-development aspects of the project, such as its nature, scope, and feature set. (The "what", but not the "how").

Cowboy Coding can have positive or negative connotations, depending on one's opinions on the role of management and formal process in software development; "Cowboy Coding" is often used as a pejorative term by supporters of software development methodologies, such as Agile.

[edit] Examples of Cowboy Coding

• How Adobe's Photoshop Was Born
• About Apache HTTP Server
• A brief history of Facebook
• Early history of Google
• The Graphing Calculator Story
• History of Linux
• The MySQL Story
• Switcher: The Macintosh's first multi-tasking environment

[edit] External links

• Cowboy Coder definition at Wards Wiki
• Delving into Cowboy Programming