For those that think coding conventions are for wusses

Moral: beware floating heads with pony tails.

(And their balding toadies.)

Au contraire: beware "bad boy" programmers who think they're hot $#!? and just create problems for everyone else.

(The balding toadies (or bald bear) will fire their ass!)

I don't know. The program didn't have a segmentation fault until that evil pony-tailed head glared at it. I think there's some bad juju going on here.

The comic feels like a ripoff to me. I can easily see Dilbert, Alice, and PHB in those roles (or maybe Wally instead of Dilbert).

Henry

Not seeing it. There are hundreds of tech-related web comics out there -- they're not all Dilbert "ripoffs".

Besides, I don't see the role fit. Wally knows and does nothing; Dilbert is too practical; and Alice is a no-nonsense DBA. (Though I can see alice in the role of the pony tail.) So who's the bad boy? And the PHB wouldn't know coding conventions from cooling vents.

In any case, I like the comic because I've been in the role of the balding toadie/pony tail too many times to count; dealing with hot-shot young programmers whose opinion of their own prowess is not even remotely in line with reality.

Yeah, I definitely have too. I remember one job where the hotshot told me he didn't like using an application server, because you get a lot more control if you write all that framework yourself. I was glad it was a short-term contract and I wasn't his manager.

Alice has always reminded me of Jeanne

That's not bad. I used to be like Asok, then Dilbert, but now every year I get more like Wally.