[anon91831837]

Yes, it's a terrible, second-stringer attitude. Curiosity and obsession are a couple of the key differentiators between a workaday jobber in it for the money (like many who flocked to tech in the dot-com times) and a badass. TBH, if someone's only in it for the money, they're wasting their life in the wrong field when they could be doing something else such that their morale and satisfaction would be greater.

[cge42]

Ahh yes, I'll be sure to let consults notes Distinguished Scientist at NVIDIA and adjunct professor at the University of Utah Peter Shirley that he's a second-stringer and not nearly "badass" enough for Hacker News commentator anon91831837 and he's wasting his life in the wrong field.

[throwaway0990]

It is not like distinguished scientist credentials necessarily correlate with exceptional code quality or software development practices. And it is not like NVIDIA is particularly known to be a place that excels at such.

[diminoten]

It's actually sad, his credentials suggest he's capable of a much better post than this...

[michrassena]

Either the post is intended sarcastically, or there's something to learn from it.

[tastroder]

> Curiosity and obsession are a couple of the key differentiators between a workaday jobber in it for the money (like many who flocked to tech in the dot-com times) and a badass.

Unit tests and sensible comments are a couple of the key differentiators between a workaday jobber in it for the money and a badass. And now what? While I kind of agree that some people might be in the wrong job, that's true for every profession and the comparison seems lacking. If we're talking day job programming, a badass is neither a requirement, nor desirable in most environments honestly.