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Philip Greenspun, aka "this person", has a pretty solid resume when it comes to programming. http://philip.greenspun.com/personal/resume http://philip.greenspun

Philip Greenspun, aka "this person", has a pretty solid resume when it comes to programming. http://philip.greenspun.com/personal/resume http://philip.greenspun.com/personal/resume

npsimons 14y ago
Great coder can't understand why there aren't more great coders around. Film at 11. Perhaps Greenspun has "suffered" from working with too many great coders, or finds programming easy, so he can't understand why there aren't more great coders around. Maybe if he studied more sociology, or IQ statistics, or hell even economics (in the form of market demands) he'd be better equipped to understand why there aren't more great coders. I know who Greenspun is, and I have a lot of respect for his programming chops, but this comes off as someone either disconnected from reality, or someone thinking that because they are expert at one thing, they are expert at everything.
djKianoosh 14y ago
just because "this person" might be solid still doesn't mean anything. quite possibly it might actually delude him from reality if he's way above average
sixbrx 14y ago
And like many brilliant and talented people, they're completely clueless that in the real world, many other people just don't have the natural abilities that they themselves have, thus they are repeatedly perplexed that others just can't do the "easy" things they do. Often I've seen instead that they will instead ascribe others' failures as moral failures, which bites doubly against those that are trying hard but can't measure up.
- beat 14y ago
  I struggle with that myself. My attitude toward people who aren't accomplishing much with their lives is "Well, work harder!" But while much of my own success is due to hard, focused work, much of it is also due to raw intelligence and talent. Not everyone has that.
danielweber 14y ago
He also wanted to make his employees work 70+ hour weeks: Suppose that a programmer needs to spend 25 hours per week keeping current with new technology, getting coordinated with other programmers, contributing to documentation and thought leadership pieces, and comprehending the structures of the systems being extended. Under this assumption, a programmer who works 55 hours per week will produce twice as much code as one who works 40 hours per week http://philip.greenspun.com/ancient-history/managing-software-engineers http://philip.greenspun.com/ancient-history/managing-softwar...

Philip Greenspun, aka "this person", has a pretty solid resume when it comes to programming. http://philip.greenspun.com/personal/resume http://philip.greenspun.com/personal/resume

npsimons 14y ago

Great coder can't understand why there aren't more great coders around. Film at 11. Perhaps Greenspun has "suffered" from working with too many great coders, or finds programming easy, so he can't understand why there aren't more great coders around. Maybe if he studied more sociology, or IQ statistics, or hell even economics (in the form of market demands) he'd be better equipped to understand why there aren't more great coders. I know who Greenspun is, and I have a lot of respect for his programming chops, but this comes off as someone either disconnected from reality, or someone thinking that because they are expert at one thing, they are expert at everything.

djKianoosh 14y ago

just because "this person" might be solid still doesn't mean anything. quite possibly it might actually delude him from reality if he's way above average

sixbrx 14y ago

And like many brilliant and talented people, they're completely clueless that in the real world, many other people just don't have the natural abilities that they themselves have, thus they are repeatedly perplexed that others just can't do the "easy" things they do. Often I've seen instead that they will instead ascribe others' failures as moral failures, which bites doubly against those that are trying hard but can't measure up.

beat 14y ago
I struggle with that myself. My attitude toward people who aren't accomplishing much with their lives is "Well, work harder!" But while much of my own success is due to hard, focused work, much of it is also due to raw intelligence and talent. Not everyone has that.

danielweber 14y ago

He also wanted to make his employees work 70+ hour weeks: Suppose that a programmer needs to spend 25 hours per week keeping current with new technology, getting coordinated with other programmers, contributing to documentation and thought leadership pieces, and comprehending the structures of the systems being extended. Under this assumption, a programmer who works 55 hours per week will produce twice as much code as one who works 40 hours per week http://philip.greenspun.com/ancient-history/managing-software-engineers http://philip.greenspun.com/ancient-history/managing-softwar...