Why Good Programmers Are Lazy and Dumb

I understand the sentiment, but this is stretching the definitions of "lazy" and "dumb" to the breaking point. "Lazy" does not mean doing less work in the long term. It means doing less work in the short term – often with resulting in more work in the long term. The laziest thing a programmer can do is copy and paste code instead of making the code reusable.

Similarly, while it's hard to pin down a precise definition of "intelligence", self-awareness and a drive to learn would be on my shortlist of essential characteristics. Dumb people typically are not aware of their own competence and do not realize that there is always much more to learn (See Dunning-Kruger effect).

But I guess "Why Good Programmers are Efficient and Smart" wouldn't have been a very interesting headline.

You see dull, repetitious work ahead of you. If you avoid it, you’re lazy. If you feel too icky not to find a better way, then you’re constructively dissatisfied. Your 4-year-old daughter demonstrates that what you’re doing is needlessly complicated, arbitrary, or meaningless. Did she do it by being “dumb”? No. She did it by being unassuming and asking simple questions, like “why?”—without fear of offending.

It’s all about open-mindedness and a light touch, not stupidity and laziness. The sense is much better conveyed by koans[1] than this kind of blunt language. But of course, blunt language makes for eye-catching titles.

[1] http://www.canonical.org/~kragen/tao-of-programming.html

  Because if he’s smart, and he knows he is smart, he will:

  a) stop learning
  b) stop being critical towards his own work

The logic here is quite flawed.

  Because he doesn’t accept the parameters suggested to him 
  that someone thinks make up the problem.

While there are cases when a programmer should simply answer the question (or solve the problem), those are exceptional. So, as said here, programmers (and others) should always ask questions; should always learn the reasoning behind things.

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I hate to distract from the content, however I found the article's use of semicolons to be incorrect throughout. (edit: disregard)

Larry Wall's original is better: http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?LazinessImpatienceHubris

This was a really stupid article.

Basically, by the use of the word "lazy" the author meant "not lazy" in certain areas and by "dumb" the author meant "not an asshole".

That was a 5 minutes of my life I won't ever reclaim...

Isn`t this like "stay foolish stay hungry" ?