By Brad Hubbard | @bradhubbard
Peyton Manning can do a lot of things. Dancing to ‘Rocky Top’ apparently isn’t one of them. Truth be told, no one looks very good dancing to the default Tennessee fight song. However, if you think about it, Manning would probably be a really good programmer.
A good developer is a good problem solver. Like, a really good problem solver. In a nutshell, they have to take a problem, break it down into pieces, figure out the dependencies and then create a solution.
Sounds a lot like an NFL QB.
Manning does something similar. He looks at a defense, breaks it down into individual match ups, finds the best one for success and then executes the play. Except he does that in 40 seconds during the game.
As you can see there are similarities in the two roles. At the core is the ability to problem solve and being quick at doing that comes with experience and practice.
While developers have the luxury or Google and StackOverflow.com at their fingertips to find solutions, Manning only has game film to study the week of and nothing but what he sees during the game.
While no one really knows when Manning will finish his playing career or if he would ever venture into the world of code, it is an option.
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