1. Have, more than once, wished to stop time, exit society and live on an isolated island so you can figure out this incredible algorithm that you know will change and amaze the world.
2. Has grasped the importance of concentrating for long contiguous periods of time to work out very deep problems. Probably worked out a very strict, detailed set of priorities to ensure that this can happen on demand.
3. Focuses more on whether he can beat the hardest unsolved problems than bragging that he is the best coder. Realizes that such a definitive metric doesn't really exist. The point is that by focusing on the science itself, you can always be challenged and won't be held back by the satisfaction of being better than some other bum. Although, this doesn't mean that he doesn't have a strong ego internally, just knows that it can only be proved through code.
4. Has some deep-seated inspiration.
5. If forced to stop working on at least something incredible for more than a few weeks, he will go crazy with a large machine gun. If he hasn't had this desire for a good while then he probably hasn't put in the effort to become great. This holds until the day he gets burt out..
Sorry, but your list looks like is searching for psychotic people. I know that some great coders are very passionate about what they do, who borderline into obsession.
I also know, that the best coder/engineer I have ever met, is married, very balanced, works 9-5:30, so he can be home with his kids, and is super super productive, and a very great guy to be around.
Honestly, he doesn't sound like he'd be the best for a startup. Not the best for an OSS project (which are always done on your own time) either. Certainly not going to make any breakthroughs in mathematics. He's going to live a wonderfully marginal life.
He may be the best around, but what's he going to amount too? Nothing different than a million other good engineers working their asses off in some giant corp in china.
I'm completely certain that some of the best painters where psychotic too. Go ahead and fault them for it if that's what you like to do.
"the best coder/engineer I have ever met, is married, very balanced, works 9-5:30, so he can be home with his kids, and is super super productive, and a very great guy to be around."
"He's going to live a wonderfully marginal life."
Uh, sounds to me like he hit the lottery (and so did those around him). What's marginal about that?
He is the kind of guy that wakes up one morning, and writes a interpreter of a 4g scripting language in a couple of days, just for the heck of it.
And he is very normal, (maybe, probably boring too you as he doesn't look like a mad scientist, or have thick framed glasses, or hipster looking), but he is much more productive in those 8hrs than any of you heroic "young guns" who decide to sleep on the desk.
Please tell me, you can be very productive more than 8hrs a day on the long run.
Remember, staying longer in office, doesn't mean you work harder. Some of the people that stay longer at work, do it b/c to compesate for their inability to code fast. They have to pull longer hours to keep up with their peers.
BTW, he is smart and some good money during the last tech boom.
Not to sound too argumentative, but let me clarify:
> "young guns"
Age has nothing to do with my list.
> He is the kind of guy that wakes up one morning, and writes a interpreter of a 4g scripting language in a couple of day
fluff talk. You cannot recognize a man who is said to do this by his acquaintances. Almost always, when someone is said to be like this, it turns out to be a gross misinterpretation of their actual ability.
> And he is very normal,
I am not at all saying that such people cannot appear and act so. This is important, I am talking about what the person thinks, in his head. NOT how he appears or acts.
> Please tell me, you can be very productive more than 8hrs a day on the long run.
I'm just talking about being able to get into the zone and stay there for as long as possible. Nothing to do with work schedules. You've really got me wrong on that one. I'm not saying the same amount of work has to be done every day either.
> made some good money during the last tech boom.
Unfortunately, that's not a good metric either because a ton of both morons and smart people got rich.
(Aside: Wow it sucks to not be able to edit comments here now..)
The best living programmer I know cut back to a more normal schedule to spend more time with his wife and kids. (I have seen him program a cooperatively multi threaded app that's resistant to memory errors on a 16khz embedded chip with around 380 bytes of ram and 2000 bytes ROM data.)
You can work 100 hours a week but you will never match a 9-5er that's 30x more productive than you are.
1. Have, more than once, wished to stop time, exit society and live on an isolated island so you can figure out this incredible algorithm that you know will change and amaze the world.
2. Has grasped the importance of concentrating for long contiguous periods of time to work out very deep problems. Probably worked out a very strict, detailed set of priorities to ensure that this can happen on demand.
3. Focuses more on whether he can beat the hardest unsolved problems than bragging that he is the best coder. Realizes that such a definitive metric doesn't really exist. The point is that by focusing on the science itself, you can always be challenged and won't be held back by the satisfaction of being better than some other bum. Although, this doesn't mean that he doesn't have a strong ego internally, just knows that it can only be proved through code.
4. Has some deep-seated inspiration.
5. If forced to stop working on at least something incredible for more than a few weeks, he will go crazy with a large machine gun. If he hasn't had this desire for a good while then he probably hasn't put in the effort to become great. This holds until the day he gets burt out..