[protomyth]

I would actually like to see a study on that. I'm not so sure its true, and it certainly has not been my experience. I do wonder if anyone is ever going to do a full study on the subject.

Weirdly, some of the best programmers I have met are people who go their degree in Music Theory. Odd and really not enough sample size.

[ThePawnBreak]

> Weirdly, some of the best programmers I have met are people who go their degree in Music Theory. Odd and really not enough sample size.

This is a very common experience, and I think it's a form of selection bias. If you look around at the top people in the industry, most have studied CS or closely related, highly mathematical subjects (math, physics). But the reason why so many people see "great" programmers who have studied art, music, literature or any other field is, according to my hypothesis (which may well be wrong), because they don't work in an environment where the typical bright CS student goes to work. So if you're working in a small web-dev company, you're not getting the cream of the crop from MIT, Stanford, CMU and other top universities (or even the less well known ones) -- those guys (or gals) go to work for Google, Facebook, hot startups in the valley or stay in academia. Instead, you're getting the average or below average CS students, and the brightest people who studied irrelevant subjects, who would have a hard time getting into a company like Facebook.

Again, I may be wrong, we need a much more in-depth analysis to draw any form of conclusion. Still, I think this also highly depends on what you consider a "great programmer". Many people consider a programmer to be great if he writes very clean, logical and easy to understand code. Personally, I think this is way too low of a bar, and I think being called great requires a very in-depth understanding of a subfield of programming (be it graphics -- Abrash, scalability -- Dean, languages -- Stroustroup, Sutter, Alexandrescu etc.) Maybe not as good or well known a the people I mentioned, but I wouldn't call any random programmer from a random company writing CRUD apps great.

[protomyth]

Even reading your comment charitably, I am left with the thought that you consider me some country bumpkin that hasn't been exposed to high quality programmers.

I'll point out the previous conversations about selection bias of universities and the companies who hire their students. I'll also point out that people go to different places because a variety of factors, many of which are beyond our control. Few actually get to walk the straight path, and I find people who don't recognize the luck they have received are poorer in spirit for it. I think you suffer more from selection bias and a need to uplift your position than I.

"I wouldn't call any random programmer from a random company writing CRUD apps great." - I suppose someone could say the same about those who serves up ads or writes webmail clients. I believe the world is amazingly interesting with the unique problems we face as programmers and challenges lie in the heart of many pieces of software. We are much too young a profession to think that the world is routine.

"Many people consider a programmer to be great if he writes very clean, logical and easy to understand code."

I would also say the best sprinters are fast. I guess I have a reverence for those who write in a clean, logical, easy fashion. I like elegance in all things and find it a very high complement. How else would one show in-depth understanding? The code is the expression of programming, not the spoken word or lecture. I guess I'm a simple man, and believe in people showing me.

[ktRolster]

What metrics do you use to evaluate 'best programmers?'

[protomyth]

For myself, I look at people who produce code that meets the specification in as brief, logical, secure manner as possible without causing a maintenance burden for their fellow programmers or the support staff.