It’s hard not to be a stupid geek. And by stupid geek I mean a smart geek who treats people poorly. Jeff Atwood points out that as a smart geek it’s important to reach out to the other folks and evangelize the latest and greatest stuff—new methods of doing things, best practices, etc. “Old-school” geeks (e.g. Nick Burns) are really detrimental to the growth of a specific technology in that their poor attitudes or lack of tact can leave a bad taste in others’ mouths.
I often think we’re wasting our time writing blogs which are largely read by the same 20%. In my experience, there’s precious little trickle-down effect from the alpha programmers to everyone else. And if there is, it takes decades. If you really want to change the software development status quo, if you want to make a difference this year, you have to help us reach outside our insular little group of alpha programmers and effect change in the other 80% of the world. And that is far, far more difficult than preaching to the converted 20%.
Ed. The video was taken down from YouTube so I removed it here.
