On: Coding Skill and the Decline of Stagnation

[richardk]

It's comforting to see that other people fluctuate between thinking they're awesome and thinking they're awful.

Experience has taught me this:

Never build your self-esteem on comparison with another

And by that I mean, you should never judge your own programming abilities based on other peoples' apparent abilities. If you're programming new stuff regularly, enjoying it and listening to what other programmers have to say, then the chances are you're getting better at it, and that's enough.

[olifante → richardk]

I want to agree, but it's hard to fight against ingrained human instincts. The need for social validation is very powerful. I would say instead:

If you have to build your self-esteem by comparing to others, do it by looking at what you've created, not what you know.