[aston]

I think your list cuts across the spectrum too broadly. Younger, more inexperienced developers should be looking, number one, to work with people who know a ton more than they do so that they can learn from the greats. Older, more experienced devs will want more influence on design (although maybe not strategy).

I think the solving complex problems part is not a real factor. Every business has its problems, and most of them are non-trivial (otherwise, everyone would be in the business), so while it's maybe your job to convince someone that your problems are worth solving, it's not necessary to prove that your problems are hard.

I also think most hackers get less joy out of pushing technology to the limits and more joy out of doing something well. Sometimes those may coincide (scaling Rails, for example) but often times pushing technology to the limits means you're not solving the problem elegantly/economically. Take Google for example; they've got the most powerful distributed computation system in the world, but it's done on some really crappy PC's.

[gyro_robo]

> Younger, more inexperienced developers should be looking, number one, to work with people who know a ton more than they do so that they can learn from the greats

Do you know anyone who actually learned this way? I, and others I know, learned mostly from reading (docs, books, code, tutorials, etc.). Great developers who are actually working don't want to be interrupted every time some inexperienced person needs help.

I also find presentations at conventions to often be painfully slow at conveying information. I can read in 5 minutes what it takes a presenter 30 minutes to talk about, and further, I can get answers to specific questions that always pop up when a presentation glosses over the details. Plus, if I already know something about it, I can just grab the knowledge "diffs" rather than sitting through 15 minutes of introduction.

Google is the #1 tool I use when programming.

[zeph]

mentors are a great thing to have, and good ones are hard to find. It's not someone you bug every time you have a little problem with your code, but someone who's been where you are now and can give you advice over a few drinks after work.

I can think of two colleagues who were critical in me ditching wage slavery and becoming a freelancer, one is a programmer, the other is a CTO but started as a network guy. I didn't learn much from them about being a developer, but I sure learned a lot about being a professional.