Imagine how fantastic it must be working with someone like Carmack. Sure, the first few code reviews would be fairly traumatic - as you quickly realise just how much faster and generally better he is than you - but I think after a little while you could just relax and try to absorb as much as possible.

I love how everything in these emails is delivered as a calm series of reflections, chronicling with great honesty his own changing opinions over time - nothing is a diktat.

I also found it rather heartening that he makes the same copy/paste mistakes that the rest of us do - how many times have you duplicated a line and put "x" or "width" on both lines..? Seemingly Carmack can actually tell you how many times he's done that!