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Comment by georgieporgie | Hacker News Reader

When I was in high school, just before the Internet became widely available, I was the greatest programmer in the world.

These days, with the Internet and constant promotion of projects, I see that I'm just a talentless nobody.

We're now regularly exposed to the work of the tiny group of truly excellent programmers, and only the very best output of the masses of regular programmers. How can anyone who stays even slightly up to date (i.e. programming blogs and social bookmarking sites) feel good about what he/she does when bombarded by success stories of amazing sites/applications/services?

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1) It is actually worse than having to compete with the best programmers in the world. Rapid development tools and high level abstractions have created the same sort of "level playing field" as the handgun did (i.e. a small weak guy with a gun can take on Hercules).

2) As you get older, some people realize that you don't have to compete. You don't have to be the smartest person in the room. Your life experiences make you unique. It might so happen your unique perspective is what is needed to make some breakthrough happen. You come to realize how much being in the right place at the right time matters more than anything else.

Intellectually, I know #2 to hold true. But that doesn't stop me from feeling that I'm not reaching my full potential :(

Also in addition to getting older, your perspective changes, especially if you end up doing something life-changing like starting a family. Then I think you might find you care a lot less about jobskill insecurities, but that this laid back attitude may actually help you.

1) It is actually better having to compete with better programmers.

At the end of the day, you're challenged more and sure, you may be further from the top than you would be if you were born 30 years ago. At the same time, you can accomplish more today than you could if you were born 30 years ago. It's all because of those better tools and better programmers out there.

Your life experiences make you unique. It might so happen your unique perspective is what is needed to make some breakthrough happen.

Spot on (see http://jamesthornton.com/manifesto).

> You don't have to compete. [...] It might so happen your unique perspective is what is needed to make some breakthrough happen.

Precisely: stand on the shoulders of giants. It does require work to climb all the way up, but just not as much as would be needed to redo all that made them giants.

The same way talented musicians, artists, or actors do: by quietly doing good work, every day. We should count ourselves fortunate that, in our industry, even if we don't make it "big", we can still make what most people in the US would think of as a whole bunch of money.

I am reminded of this post:

http://gadgetopia.com/post/6819

I think your thoughts of being a talentless nobody have more to do with gaining experience than it does having access to more information and seeing more products. You have crossed the "Humility threshold" where "What you think you know" < "What you actually know".

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