It's honestly a shock to me that instead of trying to be more open minded you accuse the person of being "not as good as [he/she] thinks [he/she] is"; let's try

It's honestly a shock to me that instead of trying to be more open minded you accuse the person of being "not as good as [he/she] thinks [he/she] is"; let's try our best to remain civil here please. In any case, I believe you two just have a misunderstanding. It sound as if you believe a "good" developer is one who is consistently capable of producing quality work, whereas the person you are responding to considers a "good" developer to be one who is capable of producing quality work. In my experience most people also share the second definition but that's besides the point. I can't imagine it's hard for you to believe that if we consider someone is "good" if they are capable then being good has nothing to do with their level of motivation which is directly affected by their workplace. That being the case, obviously any developer will produce to varying degrees depending on how well they fit with their company, or probably more accurately their team. "in fact, this is a moot point, because good developers don't stick around to try to produce work in fucked up companies." Why? There isn't some discrete separation of good companies and "fucked up" companies. There are good companies, bad companies, and companies of all levels between. And even in companies there are good and bad teams. Just because a great developer doesn't perform on one team doesn't mean it's the team's fault; it could just be a poor match.