title: Type of Team Lead: More Programmer || More !Programmer
body: <p>Yesterday I had a team leader of another team say that they took a while to figure out something I wrote on a wiki page because I referred to obtaining code from source control as "checking out" which apparently confused them.  They said that they were use to Clear Case and had only heard of the term "joining a project" and said that they haven't really programmed much for a long time.  </p>
  
  <p>While this is fine, what it then made me think of is the different types of team leaders I've had over the years.  I've had some that have been almost purely managerial and I've had those that are programmers that do managerial things at the same time.</p>
  
  <p>Do people have a preference as to what kind of team leader they have?  How do you care if your team lead is active in the development of your product?  I find team leaders who actually sit and code like the rest of the team more likely to understand things like (from my experience):</p>
  
  <ul>
  <li>things aren't always as simple as they sound.  Team leaders I've had who don't code or rarely code at all believe everything is a piece of cake and shouldn't take much time at all (which perhaps might be the case if you want to hack it together)</li>
  <li>they are more understanding that developers don't always like sitting in long meetings and do their best to avoid getting their team into as many pointless meetings as possible</li>
  <li>they understand what you say from a technical point of view.  Those that might not have coded for a while might not be up to speed with a lot of the new technologies, techniques or lingo</li>
  </ul>
  
  <p>I find it much more satisfying to have a team leader who has the mind of a developer and likes to get their hands dirty in the code as well.  Perhaps there are some people out there that like team leads who distance themselves from the actual coding side of things and simply doles out the work, or perhaps another type of team leader that I haven't mentioned?</p>