Here's my view on this: 1. There is a law of diminishing returns when it comes to effort spent vs reward. I think we can take that as axiomatic; 2. Different

Here's my view on this: 1. There is a law of diminishing returns when it comes to effort spent vs reward. I think we can take that as axiomatic; 2. Different skills are naturally harder or easier for different people. Call this affinity; 3. Given the effort vs reward curve and the different affinity levels different people have you will find that with any given skill people will tend to plateau at a particular level. This isn't simply a question of intelligence or innate ability. More than anything it comes down to motivation. Priorities vary. Perhaps someone is particularly keen on their social lives, families, hobbies or whatever and whatever skill from which they derive their livelihood just needs to be sufficiently good for them to get by. For example, I was an OK chess player. Not great. Not even particularly good but I did reach a point where I recognized that if I wanted to get better it was going to be a serious amount of effort. Nowadays I tend to play Euro boardgames simply because they have a nice effort vs reward curve and aren't (potentially) demanding mistresses like, say, Chess, Go, etc; 4. The more time you spend in any particular field the more you will master it and begin to see problems with it; and 5. Certain environments will tend to make you more or less likely to succeed. For example, if you want to get better at pretty much anything, hang around with really good people who are really good at it. Many people don't get that far because they either plateau or the effort vs reward curve gets too flat and they move onto other things. So what I tend to think of as "super programmers" combine the traits of: - some level of natural affinity; - the dedication to stick with something; and - they care enough not to simply to just enough to get by. The last I think is particularly key. When I assess an engineer one of the things I'm looking for more than anything is that they care about their craft. They can assess what they see and what they do critically and recognize where it falls short, what works and what can be done better. It's part of the reason I'm a strict pragmatist and prefer other engineers who are like-minded. Ideologues (IMHO) tend to have judgement clouded by dogma and preconceived notions. Woody Allen famously said "80% of success is just showing up". If you care about your craft and keep plugging away at it good things will happen. Those programmers we tend to think of as "super" or "rock stars" I think tend to combine all these traits with the timing and luck of having that flash of insight at the right time and following through with it. Like they say, good ideas are cheap. It's execution that matters.