How do you know if you’re a bad programmer?

What did Bill Gates actually say?

Here is the actual Bill Gates quotation from “Programmers at Work”, by Susan Lammers:

[Question] Does accumulating experience through the years necessarily make programming easier?

[Answer] No. I think after the first three or four years, it’s pretty cast in concrete whether you’re a good programmer or not. After a few more years, you may know more about managing large projects and personalities, but after three or four years, it’s clear what you’re going to be. There’s no one at Microsoft who was just kind of mediocre for a couple of years, and then just out of the blue started optimizing everything in sight. I can talk to somebody about a program that he’s written and know right away whether he’s really a good programmer.

From this I notice that:

• Bill Gates is talking about Microsoft employees, some of which are more talented as programmers, and some of which were better managers.
• Some Microsoft programmers are mediocre. That’s true everywhere. They still had a programming job at Microsoft, which ain’t half bad. Or they moved into management, which is OK too.
• It wasn’t the programmer themselves who could tell they weren’t good, it was Bill Gates from comparing one programmer to another.
• These programmers were professionals, not 15 year olds. They did not expect instant success and spent three or four years minimum at full-time programming work to achieve their potential.

I agree with Gates

The reason why I agree is programming is not an ability that can be practiced. It’s more like the development of your existing mathematical and puzzle-solving ability.

If you’re good at math, practicing programming for years can make you good at programming, too.

But math IQ likely isn’t capable of being changed. So we can’t take a non-programmer type and make them into a really skilled programmer. They’re better off in management or sales or content or doing whatever they are best at with their particular combination of social, emotional, and creative skills.

Does it matter?

That doesn’t matter as much as you might think in the real world of programming.

Most programmers are just working professionals who crank out code. That’s like 80% of the world of programming. You don’t have to be so very elite to join the world of 1 million software developers in the U.S. alone.

A great many of those people don’t even have degrees in Computer Science. They taught themselves how to program and do just fine.

Are you a bad programmer?

That question reminds me of a story. Once in middle school, we took a county-wide math test in a competition. I wasn’t even able to finish the test and didn’t recognize a lot of the questions because we hadn’t even been taught them in school.

So I told my parents I stank at math and we went home. Too bad I didn’t stick around to pick up my first place award!

The moral to this story is you just feel like you aren’t the best. But remember that the competition is only human, too.

Solving problems

You are already a programmer because you write programs that work.

Professional programmers run into difficulties all the time. They do research, brainstorm, ask for help, and give it their best shot.

Not knowing the right answer is just the first step in figuring out what it is. You have to solve those problems step by step, and that takes real work.

I’m sure you and your apps will do just fine. If you choose to pursue programming as a career, good luck!

Disclaimer: This blog post is republished from an answer on quora by Douglas Green