Frankly, I don't mind either one. Even as a manager I'd probably take either one. However, if I had to go to one or the other (supposing both are on my team) for some kind of difficult task with no deadline I'd probably go to A. I'd have more respect for A as a pure troubleshooter, though.

B *could* get your company in trouble. If B slapped together some program with other peoples' code and that code got out to the public and by happen-chance that code was recognized by someone who knew who the author was and there was no credit in the program toward that original author *and* there was a copyright on that code....whoops; lawsuit. And not only a lawsuit but a lawsuit against your company. Now how valuable was employee B? Heh, of course, this is far-fetched (there were a lot of "and"s in my example). But its possible. Shoot, people get hit by lightning! :)

Admittedly, I am arguing for the sake of arguing, now. However, I don't totally agree with your final statement. You are being very generalistic and I would agree with you if your statement were more narrow pointing. I think you are right till you state they tend not to work well with others. That is simply too broad of a statement for my comfort. Everybody on my team is the kind of person who likes the challenge of solving problems with their own mind and work. I rarely see code from people here who don't write their own code originally. They are all quite easy to get along with except my manager...heh. The same goes for my co-workers of past employers. Im not saying you are wrong but in my experience I haven't seen a wide range of people fitting your statement.

I am definitely more like person A than I am like person B. The reason? Well, everything is a challenge. What's more is that I get great satisfaction out of solving complex problems with my own mind. I am satisfied by creating something that people will be able to use, often. I take pride in my work. I like other peoples' work too...for the sake of learning. However, I still prefer to learn how to do things myself. I rarely cobble code together. If I do use code that isn't mine its a module from CPAN or some other "official" module or script. This way, I am not re-inventing the wheel but I am giving all the credit to the people who originally made that code available for my use.

I suppose I am seeing this whole thing from a different eyeglass than you. I also believe that person A will be able to troubleshoot his work faster and more reliably than person B thus making maintenance (which is always necessary) something to consider in these scenarios.

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- Jim
Insert clever comment here...