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Comment by rasputnik6502 | Hacker News Reader

You can be humble only when you're competent and you know it. Then you can make a choice. If you barely have the skill to somehow put stuff together so it kinda works then there's no place for such subtleties. So I'd rather have a skilled but showing off programmer than a humble untalented one

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I wouldn't. A humble, untalented (I'd rather say "unskilled" here) programmer is one who knows they're unskilled and wants to learn. I'll take someone who knows they have a lot to learn over someone who thinks they already know it all, any day.

Most of unskilled programmers i met did not become much better after years. They kinda reached their max and stayed there or got into management. So I wouldn't count on willingness to learn, the capability is the key

But a skilled programmer knows how to assimilate a new code base. Clearly they aren’t going to claim to know the new code base before looking at it (so they aren’t going to claim to “know it all”)

Skilled programmer has the proficiency and courage to attack the problem and win. There's some boldness coming from knowledge and experience, and i like people showing that. On the other hand an unskilled person will not be able to understand the design, will be afraid to make changes, will get confused and ignore the parts they cant understand, and will not take the responsibility and initiative - they need to be guided all the time. Then i dont care if they're humble or not, there's nothing to be gained.

Yeah incompetence is worse than bragging and humble bragging.

The issue mostly arises because Thinkers are prone to expressing confidence while accepting of criticism. But more people (feelers) are humble yet violently opposed to criticism.

But yeah, it’s good to not unnecessarily crush incompetent egos when it can be avoided... unfortunately some people are just too sensitive and even not encouraging them is seen as an attack on them.

By the way, I was agreeing with you.

My ego is crushed anyway

how is life in management ?

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