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... but you are second rate. Get over it. Professionalism has nothing to do with this. You are second-rate (or worse), as am I, because there is always someone

... but you are second rate. Get over it. Professionalism has nothing to do with this. You are second-rate (or worse), as am I, because there is always someone who is as smart or smarter who is also single-mindedly more interested in the topics of our work. For every discipline there is an Erdős, who will make the rest of us look like fools and dilettantes. Tonight, when I knock off, I'm going to put on a silly cotton outfit and spend a couple hours grappling. There is absolutely no way that such a hobby would make me better at what I do than some shadow version of myself that instead spent those 2 hours learning about Galois Field Theory or advances in compiler optimization or some such. Next to that person, I am second-rate and will always be happy to be so, but I'm not going to get mad and bitch about how that sort of person does better than I do at work.

Retra 10y ago
I think you're misunderstanding. The problem is not that there are very good people to be second to, it's that people are cargo-culting on their observable characteristics and thus mis-valuing people. One doesn't become Erdős just by carrying around math books and sleeping on couches all the time, after all.
throwaway9475 10y ago
By that logic, since there is always someone as smart as or smarter than the next person, then by induction everyone is second-rate except some mythical super hero who is absolutely the best in a given field. You know what happens to people who put in those two extra hours of work every night? They go to work the next day and still get paid the same amount of money as if they hadn't. Then they wake up at 40 wondering why they wasted decades doing extra work for the same salary instead of enjoying life and doing something, /anything/, besides staring at a computer all day. 99.9% of people don't have to care about being second-rate, or even third-rate or fourth-rate, because most developers aren't Paul Graham and they aren't Saving The World (TM). They're feeding their families and enjoying their hobbies outside the hours of 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM. And that's okay. Even so, just because they don't print out Linux kernel mailing list e-mails and snort Dennis Ritchie's ashes with them doesn't mean they're second-rate.
- glangdale 10y ago
  Your induction is nonsense, as the OP is talking about being a 9-5'er. It's not all that hard to outwork a 9-5'er and most names that we have heard, from any field of endeavor at all (math, cs, science, engineering, creative fields), would have done so. Also, some of those people who put in those extra two hours of work go on to get promoted faster and/or wind up getting their names on Big Important Things. Either way is a perfectly fine choice, but there's no call to have a hissy fit at the idea that there are people who are just as smart as you (or smarter) who are out-working you, and possibly not even having a particularly bad time doing it. Way back in this thread, the original guy was talking about enjoying tinkering with computers...
  - warcher 10y ago
    Whoever said I was a 9 to 5'er?
  - warcher 10y ago
    Moreover, the presumption that you're outworking me is... well, it's certainly possible, some do. I certainly know a few. Fewer than you seem to think though. It's possible that my disdain for recreational programming is a byproduct of my workload, rather than the other way around. Either way, my server is back up, so I'm gonna go play my guitar.
    - glangdale 10y ago
      At no point did I ever suggest I am outworking you. I'm pretty squarely in the "work and go home" camp, although I have been known to spend more time pondering algorithms problems and SIMD programming than is entirely reasonable. However, I have done you a similar reading comprehension fail by suggesting you are a 9-5'er, which is a idea introduced by the other guy (the one who imagines that elite programmers snort Dennis Ritchie's ashes) to the thread.

Retra 10y ago

I think you're misunderstanding. The problem is not that there are very good people to be second to, it's that people are cargo-culting on their observable characteristics and thus mis-valuing people. One doesn't become Erdős just by carrying around math books and sleeping on couches all the time, after all.

throwaway9475 10y ago

By that logic, since there is always someone as smart as or smarter than the next person, then by induction everyone is second-rate except some mythical super hero who is absolutely the best in a given field. You know what happens to people who put in those two extra hours of work every night? They go to work the next day and still get paid the same amount of money as if they hadn't. Then they wake up at 40 wondering why they wasted decades doing extra work for the same salary instead of enjoying life and doing something, /anything/, besides staring at a computer all day. 99.9% of people don't have to care about being second-rate, or even third-rate or fourth-rate, because most developers aren't Paul Graham and they aren't Saving The World (TM). They're feeding their families and enjoying their hobbies outside the hours of 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM. And that's okay. Even so, just because they don't print out Linux kernel mailing list e-mails and snort Dennis Ritchie's ashes with them doesn't mean they're second-rate.

glangdale 10y ago
Your induction is nonsense, as the OP is talking about being a 9-5'er. It's not all that hard to outwork a 9-5'er and most names that we have heard, from any field of endeavor at all (math, cs, science, engineering, creative fields), would have done so. Also, some of those people who put in those extra two hours of work go on to get promoted faster and/or wind up getting their names on Big Important Things. Either way is a perfectly fine choice, but there's no call to have a hissy fit at the idea that there are people who are just as smart as you (or smarter) who are out-working you, and possibly not even having a particularly bad time doing it. Way back in this thread, the original guy was talking about enjoying tinkering with computers...
- warcher 10y ago
  Whoever said I was a 9 to 5'er?
- warcher 10y ago
  Moreover, the presumption that you're outworking me is... well, it's certainly possible, some do. I certainly know a few. Fewer than you seem to think though. It's possible that my disdain for recreational programming is a byproduct of my workload, rather than the other way around. Either way, my server is back up, so I'm gonna go play my guitar.
  - glangdale 10y ago
    At no point did I ever suggest I am outworking you. I'm pretty squarely in the "work and go home" camp, although I have been known to spend more time pondering algorithms problems and SIMD programming than is entirely reasonable. However, I have done you a similar reading comprehension fail by suggesting you are a 9-5'er, which is a idea introduced by the other guy (the one who imagines that elite programmers snort Dennis Ritchie's ashes) to the thread.