I think Joel Spolsky implied "duct tape programmers" to be those who are pragmatic and get things done, those who do not try to show off unnecessary techniques but focus on solving problems, those who do not try to play toy problems with all wonderful constructs but solve real problems with simple elegant lines of code.
How about those pictures that you can see on wikipedia in "duct tape" entry ?
Apollo 17 with duct tape http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Duct_tape_apollo17.jpg
Model ship made with paper and duct tape. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Modelshipmadewithpaper.jpg
I think Joel Spolsky implied "duct tape programmers" to be those who are pragmatic and get things done, those who do not try to show off unnecessary techniques but focus on solving problems, those who do not try to play toy problems with all wonderful constructs but solve real problems with simple elegant lines of code.
Did I misunderstand what Joel's essay mean?