Programming: Attitude Trumps Intelligence

I don't think programmers are alone in this problem, however. People by nature tend to get into their own factions and bash anyone else, even if they have more in common than not. (Also note that programmers do tend to be more harsh toward non-programmers than other programmers.) Though I think programmers haven't yet (to my knowledge) resorted to actual violence, which indicates at least a little more maturity than others...

"Maturing" doesn't make a better programmer, either, I don't think, and I'd rather have Linus Torvalds' programming abilities than anyone else I can think of right now. Plus, a lack of cleverness isn't going to save you, for no matter how much work and effort you put into digging a hole for that gold, a little cleverness would have told you you're digging in the wrong place.

Lastly, I really didn't like this bit:

"It is about realizing that the complexity of software dwarfs even the most brilliant human; that cleverness cannot win. The only weapons we have are simplicity and convention."

When you've met the most brilliant human, see which software dwarfs his brain and which doesn't. I bet a lot of brilliant people can handle a lot of different complexities. Finally, while I'm a fan of simplicity (in the Einstein sense), convention should hardly be a rule. Progress can only be made by breaking convention.

I would pass on someone with an attitude of hard-work and responsibility for someone with real programming intelligence (the whole package- product to interface to maintenance) in a heartbeat. The last thing I need is someone diligently corroding a code-base.

The whole point of lisp is that the language is extensible, so that once you solve one problem, you NEVER have to think about it again. In other languages, you might have to put some conditionals in, or free some dynamic memory somewhere every time you do a task. In Lisp, you think about that once, build a syntactic structure that does it for you, and then free yourself to actually consider how to solve your problem.

It's the opposite of rock-star-programming. It is assuming that you aren't a rock star, and therefore working to reduce the complexity that your puny mind has to deal with.

Responding just to the Lisp part of this post, all programming languages suck (but not equally!). Lisp isn't designed to let you show how clever you are, it's just designed to suck a little less.

For example, until Java came along, Garbage Collection was still mostly regarded as a "toy" feature, rather than as something whose absence would make a language suck. Lisp originated Garbage Collection of course, and remains the only language where you can can find a few other "non-sucky" features that still haven't caught on in the mainstream.