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Comment by ddfisher | Hacker News Reader

> Anyone who can complete Tour de France at all or moderately but steadily grow an investment portfolio over the years should be extremely satisfied with just that already.

(I'm not certain what "should" means in that sentence - a moral judgement? - but I'll interpret it as advice.) I think that this is excellent advice for some people, but poor advice for others. I don't think there is anything wrong, per se, with wanting to be the very best at something. There's just a trade-off: you can be happily excellent, or you can take a chance and be perhaps the best but most likely just unhappy. But this decision is, in my opinion, a personal one: happiness does not have to be the ultimate goal of life.

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> I don't think there is anything wrong, per se, with wanting to be the very best at something.

Its probably obvious, but everyone wants to be the very best at something (or even everything?), even though of course its unrealistic, so most people disregard that desire almost immediately after thinking of it.

However, there are a minority that feel they can be, and when they realize they mightn't be, they cheat to do so, at the cost of others. And that's what i think is the real crux of the problem.

Imagine you're now the best programmer in the world who knows as much as any other programmer knows, and more. How depressing would that be. You'll always find room to improve any library you download from the internet. When you have no idea to do something, you have no one to ask. You'll have nothing to learn from reading programmer's blogs. Nothing to learn reading programming related entries in HN. No role models to learn from. No new information to read from programming books. No enlightenment reading Knuth's (Or Rob Pike or Paul Graham or Jeff Atwood or any other programmers') writing.

No, I have no desire to be the very best at all. It'd be great if I can always have someone in front of me to learn from, all the time.

I'm happy for you, really. But those who strive for greatness and who invent or discover new concepts also get amazing feelings, and learn amazing things too.

Not to mention that nobody can know everything. If you know everything about programming, you are deluding yourself. And even if you could know everything, there is much to be said of applying concepts from other disciplines to your own. That's how we got Design Patterns.

That is true.

The journey may be exciting, but the destination not so much. :)

What you described is not the best programmer. It's some kind of superhuman programmer that you get when you combine the best attributes of every single programmer on the planet and spends five thousand hours a day doing computer science research so that they always think of every idea first.

I'll go point by point in a situation where you're just 'the best' and not some kind of demigod that steals ideas before they are conceived.

1. Every library has room for improvement. Even the libraries you make can be improved by average programmers that focus on specific aspects of it.

2. Do you honestly only ask people that are better than you for help? Everyone that can understand a problem can potentially provide insight.

3. Blogs will still have new information, new insights that you haven't gotten to.

4. Same as 3.

5. If the only standard for role model is who is the best programmer ever, then this can be a valid point.

6. Same as 3.

So sure, being a demigod might be boring, but I would be perfectly content being the best at something.

Your interpretation is correct: I wrote it as an advice, not a judgement. Whenever in doubt, prefix the original sentence with "In my opinion, " and internet comments start making a whole lot of sense.

Everyone can be part of the 1% if they just work hard enough.

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