{"id":1580,"date":"2012-08-12T10:17:24","date_gmt":"2012-08-12T17:17:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/simpleprogrammer.com\/?p=1580"},"modified":"2018-01-28T14:28:29","modified_gmt":"2018-01-28T19:28:29","slug":"the-myth-of-the-super-programmer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/simpleprogrammer.com\/the-myth-of-the-super-programmer\/","title":{"rendered":"The Myth of the Super Programmer"},"content":{"rendered":"

I received an email this past week that disturbed me.\\n\\nBasically the author of the email inferred that most of the topics I talk about in my blog posts and Pluralsight videos<\/a> are relatively easy topics, but that I had hypocritically suggested that interviews should be hard<\/a> and should be designed for \u201creal programmers\u201d or super programmers.\\n\\nEssentially the point of the email was that application developers are not \u201creal programmers\u201d and \u201creal programmers\u201d do hard stuff with difficult math.\\n\\n<\/p>\n

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Searching for the super programmer<\/h2>\n

\\n\\n\"super_duper_awesome_programmer\"<\/a>\\n\\nI don\u2019t think this attitude or understanding about programming and software development is unique or irregular.\u00a0 Even Scott Hanselman has called himself and thought of himself as a phony<\/a>.\\n\\nHis post on the subject resonated with me, because I think the same thing about myself sometimes.\\n\\nSometimes, I wonder if I could really tackle the really hard problems.\\n\\nI would venture to say that most software developers have some sort of belief that they are just a regular programmer, but there exists out there some super programmers who actually do the difficult algorithms that control caches on hard drives and index search results for Google.<\/strong>\\n\\nNow, of course there are programmers writing code that does all kinds of complex things that you and I don\u2019t understand, but how different are those programmers from the rest of us?\\n\\nIs there really a difference between an enterprise application developer and a programmer who writes search algorithms for Google and firmware which controls the mechanical operation of the head of a hard drive as it reads data from the platter?\\n\\n<\/p>\n

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Before I give you my answer\u2026<\/h2>\n

\\n\\nLet\u2019s talk about problems for a minute.\\n\\nWhat is the most difficult problem you have ever been asked to solve?<\/strong>\\n\\nHow did you go about solving it?\\n\\nIn the end, when you actually solved the problem, did the solution seem easy?\\n\\nWhen you go back and look at the problem, does it seem much simpler now?\\n\\nLots of questions, I know\u2014but I want you to really take the time to think about those questions before reading on.\\n\\nIt is important to understand the difference between perception and reality and many software developers, myself included often have trouble distinguishing between the two.\\n\\nYou see, our perception of a problem is often much different than the reality of that problem.\u00a0 When we don\u2019t understand a thing, it seems much much more complex than it is.\u00a0 But, once we come to understand a problem, we see how simple it actually was to begin with.\\n\\nLet me give you a real example.\u00a0 Take a look at this mathematical equation below.\\n\\n\"e1\"<\/a>\\n\\nNow there are two kinds of people who will look at this equation.\\n\\n<\/p>\n

    \\n <\/p>\n
  1. Those who have a decent understanding of mid to advanced mathematics and immediately recognize it and understand it instantly.<\/li>\n

    \\n <\/p>\n

  2. Those who have never seen these symbols used together and immediately think this is some kind of complex thing that would take them years to learn.<\/li>\n

    \\n<\/ol>\n

    \\n\\nI may not be exactly correct, but my point is there is a clear division between those who understand and those who don\u2019t.\\n\\nI can very simply explain this set of symbols to you in terms you already understand.\\n\\nReady?\\n\\nThat equation is the same as this code:\\n\\n<\/p>\n

    \\n\\n