You seem to be under the impression that being difficult to understand is a sign that you're working on difficult stuff. I disagree. It more often means that yo

You seem to be under the impression that being difficult to understand is a sign that you're working on difficult stuff. I disagree. It more often means that you've got so much jargon and such poor expository skills that you're not understandable It's absolutely false to say that the Poincaré Conjecture or the CoFSG are hard because of esoteric jargon. The statements of both of these theorems are relatively simple, accessible to every mathematician. But the Poincaré conjecture resisted proof for a hundred years, and the CoFG for at least fifty, depending on how you count. Your article, I think, supports my point. One of the ways a "poorer mathematician" (to use Dijkstra's dickish term) may make an original contribution is to hyperfocus on an esoteric field, where the unsolved problems are easier simply because nobody has cared enough to solve them yet. Programming is different: an average programmer may still make an original and useful program. This illustrates that creating an original and useful program is a lot easier than creating original and useful mathematics. The Linux kernel is bigger, involved more people, and we have more assurance that it actually works. Absolutely, because it's far easier. Most of the Linux contributors could create a program comparable to Linux, given enough time: there is nothing in it so difficult that a good programmer might spend their lifetime working at it fruitlessly. But I am certain that I could devote my life to finding an alternative proof of the Poincaré conjecture, with little to show.