As one of the million people who tried to read Ulysses and failed, I'm not sure I'd hold up Joyce as the example of what programmers should aspire to. There's

As one of the million people who tried to read Ulysses and failed, I'm not sure I'd hold up Joyce as the example of what programmers should aspire to. There's plenty of popular and even good creative works which were written quickly or even under external time pressure.