I've been thinking about this in recent months, because I've had the good fortune to have worked with some great programmers in the past -- and they didn't read

I've been thinking about this in recent months, because I've had the good fortune to have worked with some great programmers in the past -- and they didn't read or write blogs or magazine articles or anything of the like. They instead simply showed up to work, treated it like a job, did it, and went home. They didn't care what language they worked with. And, often, they wrote extremely clear, good code, on a foundation of simple concepts -- the kind of concepts which get argued back-and-forth to death on the internet every day. I've believed for years that most of our great programming talent is completely unknown and completely unheard-of, working on antiquated database systems for some company somewhere. Programming "culture", so much as it has one, could benefit a lot from arguing less and doing more.