In Chinese philosophy, the concept of yin yang is used to describe how seemingly disjunct or opposing forces are interconnected and interdependent in the natural world, giving rise to each other in turn. (Wikipedia)

Yang (the more dynamic element) and Yin (the more meticulous) appear all over the place, including Computer Programming.

People, and hence programmers, tend to be more one or the other. I'm more Yang than Yin. Currently, with QuSheet, I'm going through a Yin phase, and I'm starting to chew the carpets, but since I'm on my own with this I have to concentrate on my Yin side and just get on with it.

In programming, Yang is the Creative phase: the time when you get your hands on that keyboard and start making things happen. It can be new functionality, but it can also be re-designs, refactorings and debugging. You kind of *buzz* when you do this sort of thing. Fly by the seat of your pants. Shoot from the hip. And other well-worn cliches.

On the other hand, Yin is the Tidying up phase: the time when you read through designs, if you're doing design-up-front stuff, or walk though code, or check through test scripts to make sure you are being thorough. It's when you pick up your note book with that list of all the things you need to sort out, which you've been putting off for a while, and start ticking them off.

The most important Yin activity, however, is providing Quality Assurance, rejecting all the code which is not clear or succinct, even if it "works".

To a Yang person, Yin removes the "bu" from Yang's buzz and leaves "zzzzzz". For a Yin person, Yang is just crazy hackery.

Yang and Yin is a little bit like the labels "doers" and "finishers"- but not quite. First of all, you need Yin and Yang all the way through a project. Secondly there is a suggestion that Yang does all the work and Yin tidies up, whereas it could be the Yin doing all the work and the Yang just producing disposable prototypes.

Both activities are necessary. In my experience Yang tends to precede Yin, which is why I've called it YangYin, as periods of creativity are followed by consolidation. Programming teams need a mixture.

The reason teams aren't properly balanced is generally down to the Development Manager or Team Leader that's in charge. These guys inevitably tend to favour either Yin or Yang programmers and if not careful will recruit invariably the one type. Since, in true Yin Yang style, the two programming forces are opposite it's very easy for the Yin (or Yang) Manager to think that the Yang (or Yin) programmers are useless and not want to touch them with a barge-pole.

Too much Yin means nothing gets done (short of a mountain of paperwork). Too much Yang means nothing ever works.

Richard