I know many a poor programmer. The consistent thread between them is that they don't appreciate the fact that they don't know everything. You may be very well v

I know many a poor programmer. The consistent thread between them is that they don't appreciate the fact that they don't know everything. You may be very well versed in a tech stack, but there are undoubtedly architectural implementations or design choices or algoritms which you simply don't know or haven't considered. A good programmer recognizes the situations where they cannot come up with the best solution and makes the necessary safety changes so that when the best solution does reveal itself, it's easy to swap out the old solution. Another trait is the belief that they either never need to touch their code after they write it, or worse, only they will ever touch their code. It fires me up to see code that was written with the complete intention of never coming back to it again, despite the fact that it has to be maintained to keep the business running - reports have to use the data it generates, other applications have to use it's services because we can't afford to keep re-implementing everything. I also really hate seeing code that seems like the dev locked themselves up in their basement for a decade to write it. All sorts of custom switches, hardcoded configuration values, experimental tech embedded so deep the only graceful way to relieve that debt is to nuke it.