But, what exactly is a good programmer? There are no objective metrics to measure programming aptitude. Interviews would be a hell of a lot simpler if there was. If there is no objective measure, then how do I know I'm a good programmer? The only observable metric available is if other programmers think I'm a good programmer.
The combination of the above facts are a recipe for lifelong insecurity, anxiety and posturing. Personally, I think most developers would benefit from achieving mastery in something unrelated to programming in the physical world. Team sports, weight lifting, Leather working, Woodworking, etc. It boosts confidence.
> Complex software engineering is inherently tied to innate ability, as painful as it is to admit.
Highly disagree. There is nothing in the field of programming that cannot be taught or learned. Being a good programmer doesn't make you smarter or better than an average programmer, or a non programmer, as painful as it is to admit.
My take is that the intellectual posturing comes from a social context, and has nothing to do with ability. People love to feel special, and pretending that you have to be a genius to be a top level programmer is easier (and nicer to the ego) than accepting that perfectly average people can excel in this field.
This is like arguing that there is nothing in mathematics that cannot be learned. Some people are simply not able to understand calculus, let alone measure theory and topology. Even fewer can take those abstractions and apply them to new domains.
I know there are some people in my workspace who are write software faster than I do, and their results are more maintainable than mine. This cannot be something that is "taught or learned", as I had years of experience in the field, while they had to learn it. The only explanation I have is the innate talent.
(disclaimer: this was not web, so no "technology of the day" problems)
What? This can't be learned, but they learned it? Why isn't it possible that they learned to write more maintainable software faster than you?
If anything, the opposite is true in my experience. People trained in writing clean interfaces write clean interfaces. The very purpose of abstractions (etc.) is to reduce the cognitive load on the programmer. The dumber the programmer, the more he needs those things.
The software industry is still growing up and best practices still have to be formally established. All the articles and books written about best practices in software - they're just the beginning - and most are probably wrong to some extent. Where does the intellectual posturing come from in the software industry? It's largely because of a lack of provably reliable practices and processes. The ones we have, are sold to us as 'the best thing' but they will eventually be found wanting. Ron Jefferies recent article about software estimating is a classic example (https://ronjeffries.com/articles/019-01ff/estimation-again/I...). Some people are so fed up with how unworkable estimating is that they're willing to ditch it entirely.
And so, in the absence of mature, provably reliable practices and processes the way is open to 'who's ego is the biggest' because those with big egos (but not necessarily a lot of experience) often think they know best (Dunning-Kruger). Their proposals (which are just as likely to be wrong as anyone else's) tend to be adopted simply by force of ego. For instance, you wont hear terms like 'code smells' in the hardware world (I worked as a software developer in oil and gas and rail transport for 30 years and never once heard it mentioned). To say "that's a code smell" is a kind of intellectual put down. It's intended to insult a developer into doing something differently and thereby elevate the speaker as someone who 'knows the right way'. Eventually, these things will disappear and the software world will have reliable, accurate processes, practices and rules and the 'code gurus' will be consigned to history.
And that's when the intellectual posturing will end.