[chaired]

"I confided this to a colleague, and he suggested a lunch with him and the local C guru"

This stood out to me as the #1 difference between me and successful people. I always notice it in every article or bio of someone successful. Something that has never, and would never happen to me at any point in time, but in the bios, it's always there:

The first person I mentioned my idea to suggested a lunch.

[0xdeadbeefbabe]

Don't forget the food they might have eaten: an appetizer of salami and mimolet followed by shwarma with lots of red onions in it.

Successful people affirm the consequent [0]. For example, naming your language "D".

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirming_the_consequent

Edit: add scholarly footnote and tighten up language.

[ErsatzVerkehr]

"Successful people affirm the consequent" - Not sure what you mean here; you're linking to a description of a logical fallacy.

[jere]

If you never go to lunch, you can never plan out your idea on a napkin.

[samstave]

there are plenty of napkins at the bar, however ;-)

[mahmud]

Also, successful people generally tend to have very vast social networks (in the real sense, not Facebook)

[WalterBright]

Anyone who knew me then would laugh at the idea that I had a vast social network. My colleague sat next cubicle over at work.

[eric_cc]

Why would this never happen to you?

[lelandbatey]

I believe the parent comment is implying that in every biography by someone who does something impressive, there are moments that show the environment they where in. Some things to note about the statement "I confided this to a colleague, and he suggested a lunch with him and the local C guru"

1. He had a colleague to speak to about this issue. This indicates he and the colleague had a relationship conducive to speaking about such problems, and was in a position to speak to him in the first place.

2. That colleague was engaged enough to want to hear more.

3. The colleague knew a "local C guru" and in turn had enough of a relationship with that guru to arrange a lunch between the three of them.

All of these things point to an environment that helps foster this kind of work. It shows that the author was hard working enough already to be in that position.

I don't know if others interpreted his statement to mean the same things, but that's what I have.

[WalterBright]

Note that experience was entirely negative. Nobody offered to help write any code, invest any money, do any marketing of any kind, etc.

Even after I wrote the compiler and was shipping it, a different colleague asked me one day: "Walter, I have a friend that needs a C compiler. Which one do you recommend?"

Me: "Why, mine (Datalight C), of course!"

Colleague, laughingly, "Not yours, Walter, a real compiler!"

A friend of mine, who was in earshot of this little exchange, thought it was most hilarious.

If you want to do things like this, you've got to have a pretty thick skin for this sort of "help" from your colleagues.