i’m done reading this book. i don’t know when this started but i always have this ‘awe’ with people who can make things happen. then, i got to read ‘founders at work.’ from there, i just read any thing that gets into my hands about the people behind ‘great and small great things.’
well of course, they are inspiring. inspiring in a ‘realistic’ sense. not the usual ‘showbiz story of rags to riches where the focus is mostly on the ‘big house and the big cars,’ nothing much on the rags part and the climbing-to-the-riches part. so yes blame it on the media why a lot of us is after the get-rich-quick scheme. we only get to see the big cars and big houses. but we do not know what these people go thru to get the big cars and the big house which is actually the most important and fun part of the story.
so anyway, the book is about 16 great programmers — i’ve written some of my ‘thoughts of the book here and there.’ =) but 2 things about how to be great that struck me. it is not literally written in book, just my imagination working:
1. Intuition — an undermined/underrated trait in us. when the reporter asked the programmers what’s their technique or why the do it this way. they mostly answered that that is what they feel right at the moment. one joe armstrong (i forgot what he is famout about) that he only start to program if he is feeling right about things because mostly he’d get done with it without much trouble.
2. there’s must be something wrong with you — i forgot who among them answered this when asked what makes a programmer great. and, he replied sthing like, ‘there must be something in you to be a great programmer. well, just look at einstein or van gogh or michael jackson.
i believe these 2 thoughts do not apply only to programming but to any body. how many times our intuition is telling us to do this, but we never heed its call? of course, there is a possibility that our intuition is wrong. so i guess that’s why you need to be ‘something’s wrong with you’ to believe your intuition.
anyhoo, sometimes we just need to be a little crazy. =) then, we’d get used to it and we can be crazy more often. =) and, we will be great. well, not necessarily with the big cars and big houses. but still we’d get the big FUN.