This post was borrowed from Coaching Programmers, an excellent blog by Bruce Taylor (author of Working with Programmers) that sadly hasn’t been updated recently.

There’s a particularly troubling archetype at work in the software world: the “hero programmer.” The hero programmer can rescue an entire project by himself through brilliance and superhuman stamina. He sleeps only two hours a night, usually under his desk, and can survive for weeks on Twinkies and coffee. He can produce more software in a day than most programmers can in a month, and his software never, ever has bugs in it. Imagine Rambo in Birkenstock sandals and you’ll have a good image of the hero programmer.

Of course, these people don’t exist, but the image is potent and some programmers try to live up to it: they will work killer schedules to rescue a doomed schedule, and will sacrifice their health and their family relationships to be the project hero.