You are right - doing things just because is a big part of the essence of hacking. I fully respect all the work of people who work on "hard problems" - I even

You are right - doing things just because is a big part of the essence of hacking. I fully respect all the work of people who work on "hard problems" - I even believe that I have and continue to work on "hard problems" every day. The list of things the OP used were basically "skills" not problems (virtual destruction semantics, references, pointers, etc). It's the attitude I dislike, not the desire to do hard things. The attitude that "these things are hard to understand and therefore more interesting and more worthy" is ridiculous, and shows that the writer doesn't actually understand any of the things he hasn't worked on. I don't diss people working on hard things - I diss people who call everyone who doesn't work on what they work on weenies.