[joe_the_user]

OK,

This is a fine discussion.

I would add that I think that, a favorite of this board, the mythical "(top) 10% or (top) 1% programmer" is not so much a real thing as just an average programmer who happens to avoid each of these (and related) pitfalls in the particular job he or she is working on - well, and stays reasonably education in current tech and intermediate to advanced math and cs.

And the nice, the reasonable thing, about these description is that they make it clear these people are the product of particular environments.

[paulrademacher]

> the mythical "(top) 10% or (top) 1% programmer" is not so much a real thing

And yet every place I've worked has had 1-3 programmers who wrote >90% of the code...