[singular]

> The best coders I know (including agavin, who comments below) are all insanely hard workers

I'd +1 this if I could. This is the instinct I've had for a while, and probably also the key as to why it is so rare.

I suspect a key part of it is learning how to work effectively, and avoiding burnout in the process, neither of which are trivial to achieve.

Thanks for the comment, extremely interesting!

[pnathan]

To me, insanely hard work always connotes working 80 hours/wk and not having (or spending time with) a SO, kids, or other hobbies besides the job.

I don't know if that's what you mean, but that kind of life is not one I would go for, even assuming I am capable of being more than one or two sigmas good.

[zmj]

I don't think that's true. I consider myself an ok coder, but I'm lazy. I work in bursts, but even a good day is likely to be less than six hours of actual work. Bad days are near 0. If I had the work ethic of the parent commenter, I could get a hell of a lot done in a reasonable amount of time.

Some of that laziness is because I'm not crazy about what I'm working on. Being truly honest with myself, though, it may be an internal defect that will prevent me from becoming a great coder until I get over it.

Anyway, that lack-of-laziness is what I think the parent was attempting to describe, not 80-hour weeks.

[dmbaggett]

It partly depends on "stage of life" as well. Most of the outlier coders I know are 40+ now and don't work 80 hours weeks; nor do they ignore their families, etc. However, all did at one time in their lives, and all still have a strong work ethic. Work ethic often goes along with long hours, but beyond a certain level of experience, I see excellent producers working smarter and not just harder, to use the cliche. It could be that it takes the proverbial 10k hours to get to that level of experience; I don't know.

[singular]

I definitely don't mean to imply working 80+hr weeks. Perhaps the parent does, but I personally don't think it's healthy nor do I do I think it's conducive to avoiding burnout let alone happiness. You can work hard in a 40hr week.