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Comment by timacles | Hacker News Reader

The thing that separates those guys from everyone else is simple.

Its stamina.

No there isn't some higher level of understanding or deep perception. Every one of the all time great programmers had 1 exact thing in common with no exceptions. Stamina. You will not find a single outlier.

They did their craft every day, for many hours, year after year.

So sure, any of us could have taken the individual small steps. But when you look at a whole body of work, you'll see they're cranking through these "small steps" like the Juggernaut running through walls for decades

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Stamina isn't the word I would go for. It would be commitment. For those that have loads of stamina, it's the commitment to continuous creative encounters that leads to the perceived magic.

From "Courage to Create" by Rollo May: "It is said that the novelist Thomas Wolfe, who was one of the highly creative figures of the American scene, that he was a "genius without talent." But he was so creative because he threw himself so completely in the material and the challenge of saying it-he was great because of the intensity of his encounter"

Apologies going philosophical, its the only way to debate such an answer-science has no real answers for this title we call "staff engineer"

“Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan "press on" has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race” - Calvin Coolidge

And with Coolidge's great persistence, he helped build the foundation for the Great Depression.

It is possible to "press on" in the wrong direction.

Sure, but we're talking about "persistence" and dedication on the scale of "I built a complex piece of software"

Yes. Determination is essential for success but does not guarantee success.

Kind of like how virtually all great cooking requires salt, but use of salt goes not guarantee a great dish.

After a good time of reflection, questioning mentors etc… Maybe it’s better to press on (in the wrong direction) and learn from it than do nothing and contemplate what we could do or achieve or debate for hours/weeks/months to know if it’s the right decision.

> The separation of talent and skill is one of the greatest misunderstood concepts for people who are trying to excel, who have dreams, who want to do things. Talent you have naturally. Skill is only developed by hours and hours and hours of beating on your craft.

- Will Smith

My take is that talent is a potential, without practice it is left unrealised and never turns into skill, nor success.

Then people look at success and say "well person P has natural talent, I don't, so I can't do that", which is very sad, because ultimately it's mostly about a shit ton of work, and dedication, and commitment, and persistence.

Commitment from the individual, and commitment from your organisation!

I work in a relatively 'flat hierarchy' so there are few organisational structures and proceedings that keep projects on track. It's only me that keeps the marble on the track, there are no organisational tracks. Once I lose interest or stamina the marble is gone.

Other organisations with regular check-ins, project tracking etc. have a system that at least keeps the marble in place.

Maybe, maybe not. At the end of the day it takes people interested and motivated to head in the right direction.

it's not even commitment. it's discipline. many of us know what we should be doing, and how to do each of these small steps. most of us (including me) don't have the daily discipline to pull it off.

How about grit?

Almost each of such guys didn’t have to respond to Jira tickets and answer to shit asked by PMs and TPMs on a daily basis while standing in a circle and showcase/demo “progress” weekly, be part of a trillion meetings in a day, while also preparing documents for things you provably never understood the why of, and in general justify your existence there in a quantifiable way to every TDH in the team and the company.

So when you’re looking for that role after you think you’ve got that stamina/perseverance/commitment, do remember that maybe you still have to find that right place to work at.

Tall, dark and handsome?

probably "Tom, Dick and Harry" in this context, meaning everyone

This is the answer. There's certainly ridiculous talent (especially with ideas), but in my experience it always comes down to stamina stretched through time. Cool things get built by people that stick it out, and recruit others to do the same. And also know _exactly_ when to exit to pursue something new (but that's a different subject).

Interesting, is the ability to know when to exit a prerequisite? I would think there's a distribution between those you spoke of and some that just picked one thing and went forever.

Well what I mean is there's an ability to see precisely when just enough is done -- no more, no less -- before one can hand things over and exit with sanity and / or dignity. It goes hand in hand. Many work very hard and quit before _the_ critical thing is done, which in a sense forfeits all prior work; others continue working and working and burn out. The best understand something about timing, almost in an intuitive sense. I've seen it again and again, and it's impressive.

I beg to differ. I have high endurance but since a few years I make minuscule steps and plateau way below my expectations. Meanwhile some people are gliding with their hands in their pockets and will only need 7 days to exceed their initial goal.

Understanding theory helps a lot. It's a hard limit on what your capable of making.

Perhaps the word you're looking for is perseverance?

Maybe tenacity instead of stamina?

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