I am going to extend the discussion by asking this, how do you recognize a good programmer who wasn't born from the culture of academia?
The only reason I ask is that I consider myself a late-bloomer, and after reading Coders at Work (which I highly recommend) I was kind of bummed out that I squandered my opportunity in college by not hanging out with CS crowd. It seemed like so many of Seibel's interview subjects accomplished so much in this period and were more or less born to be programmers. . .it sounds trite when I read it aloud but I can no longer ignore this unspoken caste system amongst programmers.
The only reason I ask is that I consider myself a late-bloomer, and after reading Coders at Work (which I highly recommend) I was kind of bummed out that I squandered my opportunity in college by not hanging out with CS crowd. It seemed like so many of Seibel's interview subjects accomplished so much in this period and were more or less born to be programmers. . .it sounds trite when I read it aloud but I can no longer ignore this unspoken caste system amongst programmers.