[boricj]

While I am reverse-engineering a video game by myself, I'm not really part of the reverse-engineering scene, so this one anecdote is really the only data point I have about "mentoring" someone, if it even counts. I fall into the category of people who picked up programming first and then reverse-engineering second. I don't know what I'm worth compared to other reverse-engineers and my signature technique is extremely fringe. I don't really have a reference point of what's normal or not.

That being said, I believe that there's a large skillset overlap between comparable reverse-engineering and programming activities. Knowing various programming patterns and architectures is helpful for making sense of (de)compiled code during static analysis. Being knee-deep in the bowels of a misbehaving program armed with GDB and you're getting a taste of dynamic analysis. Throw in some missing debugging symbols or advanced optimization work and you'll pick up some assembly on the way.

In my eyes, the only real difference is the mindset. On one side you're building software, on the other you're deconstructing it. Maybe I've been at it in the trenches for so long that I can't tell the difference anymore.