Let me first point out that pretty much every single programmer I have met in person has been pretty easy to get along with, and that I try myself to be as accomodating and friendly to other people as I can. (My day job as a sysadmin includes what is essentially helpdesk work, so this attitude comes in rather handy.)

But it seems there is a kind of tradition among hackers of people that are exceedingly smart but also jerks.

They get away with it if they are sufficiently smart, because many hackers tend to value a certain kind of cleverness above most other things. And honestly, I would rather deal with a smart jerk, as long as he/she was not trying to feed me bullshit than a friendly but ignorant buzzword-slinger.

Having said that, let me repeat that I would prefer a friendly smart guy over both of these extremes, and so far, I have been lucky.