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I personally say that if someone wants to refer to themselves as a great programmer, and they have at least some reason to believe that, they should find people to work with who are willing to put up with their arrogance. Everyone has a vice. Is a bit of arrogance really that big a deal?

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Yes.

Because soliciting constructive criticism is a rather important part of being a good engineer, and arrogance will get in the way of that.

And of course, working with somebody who rejects constructive criticism but loves doling it out (a characteristic quite commonly associated with arrogance) is plain annoying. So nobody wants to.

Unless you're Dijkstra.

Nobody wants to? I don't believe that. I would believe that you don't want to, which is fine. But why must you state that in such moralistic and absolute terms?

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