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The best programmers I know

(endler.dev)
628 points kiyanwang | 1 comments | 09 Apr 25 06:02 UTC | HN request time: 0.201s | source
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blackbrokkoli ◴[09 Apr 25 08:19 UTC] No.43629992[source]▶
Note that this says "best programmers" not "people best at having business impact by making software".

I wonder about this often: If you want to have impact/solve problems/make money, not just optimizing killing your JIRA tickets, should you invest a given hour into understanding the lowest code layer of framework X, or talk to people in the business domain? Read documentation or a book on accessibility in embedded systems? Pick up yet another tech stack or simply get faster at the one you have that is "good enough"?

Not easy to answer, but worth keeping in mind that there is more to programming than just programming.

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1. karmakaze ◴[09 Apr 25 12:33 UTC] No.43631346[source]▶
Not to be snarky, but my definition of best programmers would balance these. I do spend more time than most understanding the depths of tech stacks and the breadth of potentially useful ones. At the same time I strive to make software that gets the job done with only the abstractions that pay off in a short to medium timeframe.

The trap avoid are those business impact folks that demonstrate an unwillingness to get better at actual programming, which ironically would increase their impact.

Edit: an example is fixing a problem without understanding its cause.