It's rare in my experience that anyone believes they really are the best developer ever. Generally programmers seem to be a pretty humble bunch, I think. Perhap

It's rare in my experience that anyone believes they really are the best developer ever. Generally programmers seem to be a pretty humble bunch, I think. Perhaps because the nature of our work is such that, in a sense, bugs are there because of our own personal failings and mistakes. We deal with that all day, every day. How could anyone, when faced with such an ever-present reminder of their own deficiencies, honestly think of themselves as the best? (Although in thinking about this, perhaps maintenance programmers are most prone to this as their task is largely to fix bugs in other people's code - not their own. It'd be easier to fall into that trap, I imagine.) I suspect that most "I'm the best ever" talk is just a game. A form of "blowing off steam." All the developers I know do that at least some of the time. Everyone knows better, though. It's all tongue in cheek stuff and just for fun. Often it ends after a few rounds of ludicrous build up to the point where the entire universe itself would have imploded if it wasn't for me... :)