[josephg]

> The best programmers are better at talking to users and customers, because that is the harder skill.

Uh, what? Most humans find social skills much easier to learn than crunchy engineering skills. Good social skills are way more common in society than, say, deep knowledge of algorithms and data structures.

But it’s not a competition. As you say, programming is rarely a solo activity. Our projects can fail due to a lack of teamwork. Or a lack of technical skill. Or a lack of empathy with our users. Or a lack of leadership. Or a dozen other things.

We need (and need to value, depending on the project) all of this stuff.