Re:Confessions of a terrible programmer
by yason on Sunday March 15, 2009 @09:31AM
(#516808)
There's the thing between how good you think you are and how good you are when compared to others.
To be honest if you're any smart you will, no matter what, eventually realise that you're actually pretty bad. There's so much you don't know yet and lots and lots of things that bug you because you know you could have done better! This will keep you on toes which in turn makes you better than others. Conversely, it'll be quite a shock to a smart person to realise that others really aren't that smart, far from it.
This phenomenon has actually been studied: after doing some tests good students tend to think they did bad and assume that everyone else is at least on the same level, while bad students tend to think that they're actually pretty good and then assume that most other people must have done it worse.
To be honest if you're any smart you will, no matter what, eventually realise that you're actually pretty bad. There's so much you don't know yet and lots and lots of things that bug you because you know you could have done better! This will keep you on toes which in turn makes you better than others. Conversely, it'll be quite a shock to a smart person to realise that others really aren't that smart, far from it.
This phenomenon has actually been studied: after doing some tests good students tend to think they did bad and assume that everyone else is at least on the same level, while bad students tend to think that they're actually pretty good and then assume that most other people must have done it worse.