Google for Developers
5 HN recommenders · recommended in 8 months, 2011–2024
55:17 · 1.2M views · Jun 2, 2009
Brian Fitzpatrick and Ben Collins-Sussman argue that the 'genius programmer' ideal harms collaboration. They advocate trading ego for growth, sharing work early, and understanding how tools shape social behavior.
HN regulars recommend it as a career-shaping talk on code review, humility and collaborative development.
8 comments from Hacker News
I recommend The Myth of The Genius Programmer: this video What you see on Github is people's polished code - you don't see what they are throwing away. They might be better, but you are probably looking at some of the code they are most proud of. (Actually, for my github/bitbucket page this is no longer the case. After I watched this video, I started publishing as much of my code as possible, if it actually did what it was supposed to)
Two talks given by Ben Collins-Sussman absolutely changed my career path from being a hot headed programmer to thinking like a professional engineer. The Myth of the Genius Programmer: this video The Art of Organizational Manipulation: [LINK] I rewatch these every few years, or before an interview. Puts me back in the right headspace. If you're reading this Ben, thank you.
Google I/O 2009 - The Myth of the Genius Programmer One of the best talks about code reviews and similiar things this video
Most people are average, thats kind of the meaning of average. I consider myself an average programmer advancing on an average career path and had plenty of recruiters contact me with interesting opportunities recently. Sure its not Google or Facebook, but so what, I wouln't like to work for a mega coorporation like that anyway. If you doubt yourself because you consider yourself average, consider that the constant talk of excellence, highest skilled people and so forth is mostly HR PR bullshit. Sure, there are extremeley talented people out there, but they are pretty rare. Interesting video, that touches the issue: "The myth of the genius programmer"[0]. [0]: this video
"I hated discussing what OO pattern should be used" "they submit patches to major frameworks, writes things in assembly for fun" You don't have to do this kind of things to be a programmer. Of course discussing OO patterns with your team is a need but submitting patches to major frameworks is on your free time! If every programmer would do so we wouldn't have so many incomplete open software. Try not to be chased by the "The Myth of the Genius Programmer" and keep enjoying creating things. A google talk: this video