[lolinder]

Except for that in the sentence right before that he says that he did write his own C libraries from scratch, which I think means that the only reasonable interpretation of the "practitioners..." clause is that those are the people people that he describes as his "competition" who he is "clearly better than".

I'd really like to read it that way, but I'm afraid he actually did come across that arrogant.

[smoothbenny]

I'm not seeing where he says he wrote libraries in C in a cave with scraps. That sounds like a few steps beyond writing libraries from scratch (non-specified language). One's competition is their equals, no? It's not a competition otherwise.

[eichin]

It's just an Iron Man(2008) movie reference. (Though it was the Big Bad saying that a problem wasn't that hard if Our Hero didn't need any resources - which doesn't exactly fit what the author seems to be saying here - I read it mostly as lightening the mood a bit regardless.)

[lolinder]

"I am clearly better than most of my competition"?

[smoothbenny]

Still not seeing where he said he himself wrote C in a cave with scraps. Not suggesting he's humble, but I still think he sees himself as one of them (he doesn't say he's "better than everyone [at that level]")

[hluska]

The entire sentence is:

“I'm not God's gift to the field, but I am clearly better than most of my competition - that is, practitioners like myself who haven't put in the reps to build their own C libraries in a cave with scraps, but can read textbooks and use libraries written by elite institutions.“

It’s quite poorly written, but they note they’re clearly better than most of their competition.

[smoothbenny]

> they note they’re clearly better than most of their competition.

Yup, I've noted that three times. Are we still claiming he wrote libraries in C in a cave with scraps? Or just moving on?

Poorly written? Maybe. Poorly read? Equally likely. Maybe we should just ask the guy, he'll know.

Did the downvoter see me as their "competition"? "Clearly better"? Both? I don't have enough karma yet to respond in kind, so they're right about something at least.

lol they did it again. mods!

[jsnell]

The section starts with him bragging about having written libraries from scratch. Given that, I really don't understand how you can arrive at them considering themselves one of the people who hasn't written libraries.