Life lessons I learnt from great programmers

I’ve really started to think that there are some personality traits that set great programmers apart from mediocre ones.

I’ve had the chance to work with some great programmers in my career, and I found some common traits in them which set them apart. Here’s what I think they all had in common:

Courage

Positivity has to do with this. They don’t see anything impossible. They don’t give up. They are courageous. Given a problem, they let their imagination run wild. They search, they think, they talk, they look at the problem from different angles, they keep trying until a solution strikes!

Average programmers are often like, “huh, this isn’t easy, I give up.”
Great programmers are like, “hmm, interesting… there must be a way”

Grit

Honestly, programming and software isn’t easy. It takes a lot of grit.
Good programmers know this through years of experience. They’ve failed a million times, and have tried again another million of times.

Hard way or easy way, great programmers have learnt that failure isn’t end. It just means retry. You’ll eventually reach your goal. Eventually. It might take whole day, or whole month. Never give up!

If you have this trait, congratulations! You can be an awesome programmer. Or you’re already one.