

Why I'm The Best Programmer In The World - pgmcgee
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2004/08/why-im-the-best-programmer-in-the-world.html

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vnorby
_"When interviewing candidates for programming positions, I always look for
someone who is brave enough to say "I don't know" when they need to.
Candidates who can't or won't do this get red flagged; those types of
programmers are dangerous. "Can-do" attitiudes have a superficial allure, but
they're actually poison in our field."_

I think this might be misleading. I never like saying "I don't know" by
itself. Most of the time in real life situations, it's "I don't know, but I'm
happy to find out" or "I don't know, but I'd love to learn how." To me, my
attitude as a programmer is ALWAYS can-do, meaning, there is nothing that I
can't or won't figure out or learn if it needs to be done. I think that helps
me constantly push my technical limits.

~~~
kroger
I agree with you, but I still like people who can say just plainly "I don't
know". This reminds me of PG's "How to Start a Startup" [1]:

"When nerds are unbearable it's usually because they're trying too hard to
seem smart. But the smarter they are, the less pressure they feel to act
smart. So as a rule you can recognize genuinely smart people by their ability
to say things like 'I don't know,' 'Maybe you're right,' and 'I don't
understand x well enough.'"

"This technique doesn't always work, because people can be influenced by their
environment. In the MIT CS department, there seems to be a tradition of acting
like a brusque know-it-all. I'm told it derives ultimately from Marvin Minsky,
in the same way the classic airline pilot manner is said to derive from Chuck
Yeager. Even genuinely smart people start to act this way there, so you have
to make allowances."

"It helped us to have Robert Morris, who is one of the readiest to say 'I
don't know' of anyone I've met. (At least, he was before he became a professor
at MIT.) No one dared put on attitude around Robert, because he was obviously
smarter than they were and yet had zero attitude himself."

[1] <http://www.paulgraham.com/start.html>

EDIT: formating

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mikeryan
Its funny I backed into programming by starting to do web development in the
mid 90s. I was completely self taught, as most people were at that time when
the technology of the web was changing so fast that a CS degree was almost
obsolete the instant it was printed. I got my first web development job with
little more then a desire and an "HTML for Dummies" book (which for years was
the most borrowed book in my library)

It made me always question if I was "doing it right" so I quickly learned to
eat any pride I had and ask questions of people. When I look back at it I
always say that was one of the keys to any success I had. Even as I move a
ways from development to building a business I still find myself constantly
asking for advice even at risk of looking a bit naive, because I always felt
that asking for advice and help was the only way to get better.

