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Ask HN: How do you go from good to great Programmer?

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Re: Ask HN: How do you go from good to great Programmer?

#31

Post by aristofun »

binary132 wrote: post #24
aristofun wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Leadership and engineering are two different skills. They may coexist in one person. But great engineering is not always a great leader.

Maybe it depends on how you quantify greatness. I think that if you're really good at writing a fast matrix kernel, that's lovely, but if you're really good at making a matrix kernel which is very useful to lots of people, or even just to your team or company, _that's_ great.

> which is very useful to lots of people, or even just to your team or company, _that's_ great

agree

but you don't need to inspire anyone to do that

You just need to be great at engineering and have some empathy to your end users

Re: Ask HN: How do you go from good to great Programmer?

#32

Post by programjames »

subtra3t wrote: post #26
binary132 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and why have you heard of them?

This. If the personalities you mentioned didn't have the soft skills GP was talking about, you wouldn't even know of their existence. Sheer technical ability alone is not enough to be a great programmer. If you don't know how to properly communicate with others you are useless to your employer.

You're not making any sense to me. How did you get from "not famous" to "must not being a great programmer"?

Re: Ask HN: How do you go from good to great Programmer?

#33

Post by syndicatedjelly »

meiraleal wrote: post #30
syndicatedjelly wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry to be blunt, but how does knowing how to sell software make you good at writing it? What’s the end goal of the act of writing code supposed to be?

I didn't say selling software, I said make a profit with a software, which needs to be functional and good enough for people to spend money on it

Sorry if I misunderstood.

You used the phrase “real value” - what do you mean by that?

Re: Ask HN: How do you go from good to great Programmer?

#34

Post by in9 »

programjames wrote: post #32
subtra3t wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. If the personalities you mentioned didn't have the soft skills GP was talking about, you wouldn't even know of their existence. Sheer technical ability alone is not enough to be a great programmer. If you don't know how to properly communicate with others you are useless to your employer.

You're not making any sense to me. How did you get from "not famous" to "must not being a great programmer"?

They are rockstarts because they have technical skills AND soft skills. Sure, John Carmack was a technical beast when it came to computer graphics. But one can't work for Facebook/Meta from 2013 to 2019 (and as a consultant until 2022) without soft skills.

Re: Ask HN: How do you go from good to great Programmer?

#35

Post by meiraleal »

syndicatedjelly wrote: post #33
meiraleal wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't say selling software, I said make a profit with a software, which needs to be functional and good enough for people to spend money on it

Sorry if I misunderstood. You used the phrase “real value” - what do you mean by that?

So my point is that someone being a real "full stack" developer that is capable of creating an app from conception to market, generating value to customers that are willing to pay for it. Someone that can understand all the lifecycle of a software in place of being a great "backend developer", "frontend developer", etc.

Re: Ask HN: How do you go from good to great Programmer?

#36

Post by ctvo »

in9 wrote: post #34
programjames wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not making any sense to me. How did you get from "not famous" to "must not being a great programmer"?

They are rockstarts because they have technical skills AND soft skills. Sure, John Carmack was a technical beast when it came to computer graphics. But one can't work for Facebook/Meta from 2013 to 2019 (and as a consultant until 2022) without soft skills.

John Carmack can have all the soft skills in the world. If he wasn't technically credible, it does not matter. This topic is about how to get that level of technical proficiency, how to become a great programmer.

Jumping in and telling folks to be a great communicator or tech lead instead is not the way to become a great programmer. That's the way to become a great staff engineer. They're not the same things.

Re: Ask HN: How do you go from good to great Programmer?

#37

Post by binary132 »

ctvo wrote: post #36
in9 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are rockstarts because they have technical skills AND soft skills. Sure, John Carmack was a technical beast when it came to computer graphics. But one can't work for Facebook/Meta from 2013 to 2019 (and as a consultant until 2022) without soft skills.

John Carmack can have all the soft skills in the world. If he wasn't technically credible, it does not matter. This topic is about how to get that level of technical proficiency, how to become a great programmer. Jumping in and telling folks to be a great communicator or tech lead instead is not the way to become a great programmer. That's the way to become a great staff engineer. They're not the same things.

The point is that Carmack's work was extremely influential. That wouldn't have been true if he wasn't technically great, but technically great work can fail to have any influence whatsoever. Which is greater?

Re: Ask HN: How do you go from good to great Programmer?

#38

Post by binary132 »

aristofun wrote: post #31
binary132 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe it depends on how you quantify greatness. I think that if you're really good at writing a fast matrix kernel, that's lovely, but if you're really good at making a matrix kernel which is very useful to lots of people, or even just to your team or company, _that's_ great.

> which is very useful to lots of people, or even just to your team or company, _that's_ great agree but you don't need to inspire anyone to do that You just need to be great at engineering and have some empathy to your end users

I didn't say anything about inspiring anyone

Re: Ask HN: How do you go from good to great Programmer?

#39

Post by dev_0 »

binary132 wrote: post #37
ctvo wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

John Carmack can have all the soft skills in the world. If he wasn't technically credible, it does not matter. This topic is about how to get that level of technical proficiency, how to become a great programmer. Jumping in and telling folks to be a great communicator or tech lead instead is not the way to become a great programmer. That's the way to become a great staff engineer. They're not the same things.

The point is that Carmack's work was extremely influential. That wouldn't have been true if he wasn't technically great, but technically great work can fail to have any influence whatsoever. Which is greater?

[dead]

Re: Ask HN: How do you go from good to great Programmer?

#40

Post by programjames »

binary132 wrote: post #37
ctvo wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

John Carmack can have all the soft skills in the world. If he wasn't technically credible, it does not matter. This topic is about how to get that level of technical proficiency, how to become a great programmer. Jumping in and telling folks to be a great communicator or tech lead instead is not the way to become a great programmer. That's the way to become a great staff engineer. They're not the same things.

The point is that Carmack's work was extremely influential. That wouldn't have been true if he wasn't technically great, but technically great work can fail to have any influence whatsoever. Which is greater?

You keep repeating the same idea: they're a great programmer because they're influential. You seem to be missing the point everyone else is trying to make: being a great programmer has nothing to do with being influential. Lisp is a great programming language, yet very few people use it. C++ and Javascript? Practically viruses, but every browser relies on them.

Yes, it's true that many great programmers are also highly influential. But Linus was a git (his word, not mine). He isn't influential because of soft skills, it's because he was already a great programmer.

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