Software development models, pair programming, agile, team rooms, etc.

[Jack Coats]

[snip] there certainly seems to me to be something about
> programming and system administration (which require overlapping but not
> identical skill sets) that seems to attract people who are generally
> *less* socially inclined.[snip]

This is true.  The same can be said for generic 'engineers' and 'scientists'.

This is also what wooed me away from my oil company job as a sysadmin
to work for a sysadmin consulting company.  Technically competent admins
are easy to find, but a whole large consulting company of ones that actually
had a real personality, ... well in its day, that was a great marketing tool.

Prior to that knowing admins with social skills I thought was an anomaly rather
than what the norm should be.  Even my son's college worked hard on recruiting
non-typical people to turn into engineers (olin.edu). ... It can be
done, but the
work (engineer, programmer, admin, etc) does seem to attract people that would
rather work with a computer or machine than with people.