[skrebbel]

A guess:

To the question "What do you think makes some programmers 10 or 100 times more productive than others?"

Guido van Rossum answers "Genetic differet brain structure." (sic)

Tim Bray answers "The surprising variability of the human mind."

I think they're basically the same answer, but Tim Bray's is the very American politically correct "hooray to everybody!" version. Given that the title of the blog post refers to "great programmers", Guido's answer could be read as "my brain is super awesome and yours is not". Which, I bet, is not what he meant.

[X-Istence]

The thing to remember as well is that GVR is Dutch. We Dutch tend to be rather direct and straightforward in speaking our opinion without sugar coating it. To some it comes across as being a jerk, when it isn't.

There are entire blogs and forums that discuss this, one of the best known has to be this one: http://stuffdutchpeoplelike.com/2011/05/28/dutch-directness/

[jonahx]

Dismissing the difference between those 2 answers as political correctness, while not completely inaccurate, misses a larger point imo. It almost seems to me there is a different attitude toward other people and the world contained in them.

[skrebbel]

i dismiss the difference as culture. If you really directly translate 'the way people say things' to 'the way people think about others' then I doubt you've been much in contact with people from other cultures than your own.

[pbourke]

> "Tim Bray's is the very American ..."

Tim Bray is Canadian.

[skrebbel]

So?