It's hard, man. I think most people who call themselves programmers could write some simple programs or tinker together a really simple app that was fragile and

It's hard, man. I think most people who call themselves programmers could write some simple programs or tinker together a really simple app that was fragile and buggy. To do programming _right_, where your software has real impact on people's lives and you can't afford to kinda sorta get it right...that's not something most people have in them. And there are levels to this. I've worked alongside people whose code made me recoil in horror. It's like watching a toddler skipping merrily through a minefield, just no clue how careless they're being. On the other hand, I've worked with others who pointed out things I've done or an approach I was considering, and I've had to blush when they pointed out how I was sprinting headlong into a world of error...but their filter for bad logic was so fine and accurate that many other people wouldn't have thought twice about the work in question. Computers are machines, they're cold and unfeeling and they won't meet you half way...either you've codified your logic and presented it to the computer perfectly, or you lose. In other words, the best programmers may not have to be cold or mechanical in personality, but without fail they can wield logic with mechanical precision--as much as human beings are capable of, anyways. I'm not sure we know exactly what we're asking when we're trying to find the meat bodies who best interface with machines.