Am I good programmer?

After some break in posting I returning with another weird topic :D

Am I good programmer ? 

This is one of this topics that is simple: I'm the best programmer :D so we all came to this nice conclusion and we can end all discussion ...

If only real life was so simple :) Some time ago I spend whole evening with friend discussing if I am good in what I do. Funny thing is that in this discussion I was the person who claimed that I'm still not skilled enough. Because what in the end mean that I'm good programmer?

I think that this is tricky question because of multiple reason:

  1. It depend who you compare to.
  2. It depend what kind of work you do/done.
  3. It depend what you expect being good in.
  4. It depend what you mean by being good.
So lets start in order:
Follow and be followed

After all this year I spend on programming I still seeing that there are people who are better than me and in the same time I see people that are not so good as me. It don't mean that they are good or bad. 

It just happen that in current time we are in this configuration. Few years later situation may change I can be better than all of them. Nothing may change and there exist possibility that I will be the worst of them. This is the reason why we programmers can never stop learning. In this world everything changing and if won't change with it we will be left behind.

Look what I done

This one is tricky because what mean that I done something? This most of the time mean that:
  • This task was assigned to me,
  • There was need for it,
  • There is no similar system in code base,
  • I sacrifice my own time to do something after work.
All of this mean that not everybody can do great, big stuff in work. There is army of people which do small changes, bug fixes and support. This not mean that they are worse than the people who done big systems.

I'm good in what I do

In this world there are specialist, generalists and stupid people like me. 
  • Specialists - are people who are awesome in what they do but they knowledge behind their specialization is often really limited. 
  • Generalists - are people who know a little bit of everything but they don't have tight specialization.
  • There are also this stupid people who want to be specialists in everything. Always trying to have big knowledge in everything they touch.
No mater which kind of people you want to be it won't be easy.

I'm who I'm 

If you see me as good programmer I'm appreciate this. If not then tell me why you think so. I will try my best to fix this. In the end I'm just another programmer who do the best it can to be the best in what he do. Thanks to that I know that I still have infinite possibilities for growth and this is what I love in this work: 

I can learn new stuff all the time so it's never really boring.

This is also reason why in my eyes you need to deserve for being good programmer you don't gain it just because you done something or you have a lot years of experience. You need to prove it to me and do this all the time.

Greg




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